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THE POEMS OF 
FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 



Edited and Collected by his Granddaughter 

MICHELLE CUTLIFF TICKNOR 




New York and Washington 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1911 



7$ 3"^ 

1 ■ifn 



Copyright, 1911, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 



r 



DEDICATION 



TO ROSALIE 

[To his wife, R. N. T.] 

How shall I sing to thee? 
What shall the measure be, 
Star of my reverie, 
Loveliest Rosalie, 

Purest of Pearls ? 
Smooth as thy forehead fair? 
Sweet as thine eyelids are? 

Soft as thy curls? 

As from the starry vines 
Of the white jessamines, 
When the first planet shines, 

Only at even, 
Incense, the wanton day 
Vainly would woo away, 
Freed from the bending spray, 

Rises to Heaven; 

As in the forest dim, 
Cradled in mossy rim, 
Murmurs the fountain's hymn, 

Seeking no river; 
Lulling the lily's sleep, 
Watching the shadows creep, 

And the stars quiver; 
Such should my measure be, 
Such were my minstrelsie, 
Maid of my reverie 
Sacred and sweet to thee, 

Or silent forever. 

Torch Hill, 1855 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Biography of Francis Orray Ticknor (Michelle 

Cutliff Ticknor) 9 

Francis Orray Ticknor (Paul Hamilton Hayne) . 21 

Ticknor's Poems — Criticisms 26 

Little Giffen 34 

SENTIMENT AND HUMOR. 

Gray . . 39 

The Prisoner of Glatz 40 

Visiting the Valley of the Shenandoah .... 41 

The Old Harpsichord 42 

The Colonnade 43 

Song by Night 44 

To the Little Rosalie 46 

In a Sun-Picture 47 

"Nina" — Her Eyes 47 

Brownie Belle, of the Esquiline 48 

To the Little Lady Alice 50 

Sunbeam 51 

To a Lady of Texas in Italy 52 

Jo — 53 

The Bride 53 

The Valley of Nacoochee 54 

America 55 

Georgia 57 

Virginia 58 

"Ora Pace" 59 

Atlantis 60 

Battle for the Right 62 

The Conquest of Labor 62 

The River 64 

Unknown 65 

The Caucasian 65 

Holland 66 

Slave of the Dismal Scamp 67 

The Old Rifleman . 69 

The Bills 70 

There is a Time to Travel 71 

Moving On 72 

Ye Mover 72 

Nephew Tom at a Crisis 74 

Song of the Single Gentleman 75 



CONTENTS 



SONGS OF HOME. 

PAGE 

Home 79 

An April Morning in Georgia 80 

A Nosegay 81 

Into the Shadows 82 

"Do They Miss Me at Home?" 83 

A Song for the Asking 83 

Our Bobby — Asleep 84 

"Gelert" 85 

"In Mamre" 816 

The Peddler Man at Torch Hill 87 

Group of Ducklings 88 

The Gray Going Home 89 

"Whip-poor-will" 91 

"Mother's Work" 92 

Idyl 93 

Twilight on Torch Hill 96 

Among the Birds 97 

The Echo Story 98 

The Hills 99 

Plant Fruit and Flowers 102 

The Farmer Man 103 

Bumbleby . 108 

Free Trade for the Farmer Man 112 

The Horrors of Horticulture 115 

POETA IN RURE Il6 

"King Korn" 117 

Land and Labor 119 

Ye Rhyme of ye Rustyc 120 

Junialuskee 123 

Nantahalee 123 

Reminiscences 124 

WAR POEMS. 

The Midnight Cross 129 

E. P. N. C. — A Lily of the Valley 129 

x The Virginians of the Valley 130 

Little Giffen 131 

William Nelson Carter 132 

Lee 134 

Our Great Captain 134 

Dead Jackson 135 

4 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Albert Sidney Johnston 136 

The Sword in the Sea 136 

"Gracie," of Alabama 137 

Beauregard . . . 139 

General Jubal Early 140 

The Gap 141 

Labor — Sacrifice 142 

The Crest 144 

Loyal 145 

Stone Mountain 147 

A Battle Ballad 149 

Our Left 151 

The Rider in Gray 152 

Cannon Song 154 

Wedded in War 156 

The South — In Memorial 157 

South in Memorial 158 

The Hall 159 

Under the Willows 160 

Dixie 161 

Arthur the Great King 162 



EARLIER POEMS. 

To the Old Elm Tree 169 

The Pine Tree (Sketches with a Pine Straw) . . . 170 

The Old Dead Pine 171 

To Little Ann Page Carter 173- 

To Little Ann Page Carter 174 

On the Death of His Grandmother 175 

Death 176 

On the Death of a Little Girl 178 

To a Piny-woods Girl 179 

To 180 

To Miss Mary Hunt 181 

To 182 

To the Tallapoosa River 183 

Cherokee Bluff 185 

A Lock of Indian Hair 186 

The Rose- Vine in the Church Window (Sketches 

with a Pine Straw) 187 

Song 188 

To His Horse 190 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Inscription 193 

Illuminating Letters 193 

Woman 194 

A Fragment 195 

To Our Venerated Friend of the "Corner Stone" . 196 

The Flowers 196 

"Felix" 198 

"The Brown Bridge" 198 

"The Exact Situation" 199 

The Bowie Knife 200 

Carrier's Address 201 

His Style 202 

Hancock 203 

Poor Tom (A' Cold) 204 

The Constitution 206 

The Hieland Lass at Lucknow 206 

"Honor the Brave" 207 

To Congress 208 

The Gunboat 209 

yEsop Again 210 

Baby's Poem 211 

Diogenes 212 

Agonistes 213 

"Barry" of Saint Bernard 214 

Fable 215 

The Sphinx 215 

May Queen 216 

Modern Minstrelsy 219 

Shovel and Tongs 220 

To Dr. Holland on Reading "Kathrina" .... 220 

Old Brass 222 

"McHenry" . 222 

The Unity of the Races 223 

The Old Peach Tree, with a Moral 224 

Ye Little Tree 225 

To the Choir 227 

A History of the Choir; or, What's in a Name? . 228 

"Little Rose" 229 

To a Very Beautiful Old Lady 230 

The Bumble Bee 231 

The Opalet 232 

The Marmot's Harvest Home 232 



CONTENTS 



MEMORIAL AND RELIGIOUS POEMS OAr _ 

Twenty-sixth of April 233 

Symbie — A Legend 234 

The Ball 236 

Under Ground 237 

Two Million Pills per Diem 239 

In Memoriam 243 

Sans Change 244 

Ye Redbreast at Calvary 245 

Tribute to the Memory of John Bethune .... 246 

Charles J. Jenkins 247 

In Memory 247 

In Memory of a Little Girl 248 

Our Treasure in Heaven 248 

"The Children That Are Not" 249 

Faith 250 

The Child and the Churchyard Cross 251 

Little Katie 252 

Lines 252 

The "Comforter" 253 

Flowers After Frost 253 

Mary 255 

The Pilgrim 256 

Sperans 256 

What, Oh, Man 257 

Unto the Even 257 

Rest in the Lord 258 

"Even Unto the End" 259 

"Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I Trust Him" . . 260 

Easter 260 

Christmas Carol 261 

A Christmas Carol 263 

The Beauty of Holiness 263 

The Church 264 

The Cemetery 265 

Bibliography 267 



BIOGRAPHY OF 

FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

(November 13, 1822— December 18, 1874) 
By Michelle Cutliff Ticknor 

"One of the truest and sweetest lyric poets the 
country has yet produced." Thus Paul Hamilton 
Hayne characterized Francis Orray Ticknor, who 
was born in Fortville, Jones County, Georgia (near 
Baldwin), on the 13th of November, 1822. 

His parents were from Connecticut. In 181 5 Dr. 
Orray Ticknor, a physician of Columbia, Conn., 
moved to Savannah, Ga., where he married Miss 
Harriot Coolidge of Norwich Town, Conn. She was 
a daughter of Henry Joseph and Lucy Jones Cool- 
idge, who came from Connecticut to Georgia about 
1800. Henry Joseph Coolidge died in Savannah in 
1803, aged thirty-seven. 

Soon after his marriage to Harriot Coolidge, Dr. 
Orray Ticknor moved to Fortville, where their three 
children, James, Lucy Elizabeth and Francis Orray, 
were born. The latter was not five months old when 
his father died. Of his death a Georgia newspaper 
for March, 1823, contained this notice: "Died, at 
Fortville, Jones county, on the 10th inst., in the thir- 
ty-third year of his age, Dr. Orray Ticknor, a native 
of Connecticut, but for seven years past a citizen of 

9 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

this State. In the death of this amiable man it may 
be justly said society, as well as his family and 
friends, has suffered an irreparable loss. Although 
not in possession of riches, that bauble which attracts 
the attention and the admiration of the world, he 
possessed in himself a treasure of imperishable vir- 
tues. As a friend, a husband, a father and a philan- 
thropist he was not surpassed. His companions can 
never think of him without emotions of pleasure 
while dwelling on his many virtues, or without regret 
at his sudden and unexpected death. For his discon- 
solate and amiable companion with three small chil- 
dren it would be unfeeling to suppress the grateful 
tear of sympathy. If medical skill, or the wishes of 
numerous acquaintances, could have saved him, he 
had surely yet lived ; but the inscrutable and unerring 
decree of Jehovah directs otherwise." 

A few years after the death of her husband, Har- 
riot Ticknor moved to Columbus, Ga., to procure 
better advantages for her little family. She was an 
unusually brilliant woman, possessing a remarkable 
mind, a liberal education and sterling qualities, which 
she devoted to the advancement of her children. 

James was educated as an Episcopal clergyman. 
Lucy Elizabeth married first the Rev. Mr. Cairns; 
second, Mr. Dillingham. Francis Orray, or Frank, 
as he was called, the subject of this sketch, was sent 
to Massachusetts, where he received a collegiate 
education. On finishing there he had a thorough 
medical training in New York and Philadelphia. 

10 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

After graduating at the latter city he spent the year 
of 1842 in Norwich Town, Conn., in the old home, 
the birthplace of his mother, built two hundred years 
ago by his great-great-grandfather, SUvanus Jones, 
and still standing on Elm avenue. 

While in Norwich Frank was the constant com- 
panion of the leading physician of the town, accom- 
panying him on his visits to patients. His first cousin, 
Mrs. Harriot Coolidge Robinson, who still lives in 
the old house, gives her recollections of him at that 
time thus: "An attractive young gentleman, with 
high forehead and smooth face, a sweet face. I can 
see it now, though nearly sixty years have elapsed 
since I saw him. I remember him sitting at a table 
piled high with books, with the one he was studying 
at the top, so that he was obliged to sit up very 
straight. He would draw comic pictures of my sister 
Mary and myself for our entertainment. He was full 
of fun, overflowing!" 

The only picture of him in existence is a sketch by 
his sister-in-law, Mrs. Evelyn Page Carter, and con- 
sidered a good likeness. He is described as a man of 
medium height, slender, with high forehead and 
beautiful gray eyes. As a boy a stranger said on see- 
ing him pass that "he was the most beautiful boy she 
had ever seen." 

After his studies in the North he settled at Shell 
Creek, Lumpkin County, Georgia, in the heart of the 
piny woods. According to his letters the name "Shell 
Creek is derived from the immense masses of ante- 

11 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNO R 

diluvian shells which were found there in digging, 
and which, in the form of marl, comprise the borders 
of our creek. The deposit is in some places fifty 
feet deep." 

The solitude of the country so suddenly con- 
trasted with the life of the cities was at first almost 
unbearable to him. His letters to his dearest friend, 
and, later, brother-in-law, William Nelson, written 
during his sojourn at Shell Creek give a graphic 
account of the place, the "natives," and that stage of 
his life. To a man with his almost unlimited fund 
of knowledge the lack of companions able to appre- 
ciate and understand his higher feelings often occa- 
sioned a sense of desolation. However, instead of 
living within himself, and looking entirely to books 
for society, he lived and worked among the people, 
and for them, with the determination of gaining their 
affections. How well he succeeded in this was at- 
tested by the universal mourning at his death. The 
flute and his "verse-making" were his chief recrea- 
tions from the routine of practice. 

He married Rosalie, youngest daughter of Major 
Thomas Mauduit Nelson of Virginia, great grand- 
daughter of Secretary Thomas Nelson of the Colo- 
nial Council of Virginia and grandniece of Thomas 
Nelson, signer of the Declaration of Independence. 
Major Thomas M. Nelson served as captain of in- 
fantry in the war of 1812, at the close of which he 
was promoted for gallant service to the rank of 
major, and presented with a gold sword by his State. 

12 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

Later he figured as a prominent member of Congress. 
In 1840 he moved to Wynnton, Columbus, Ga., 
where on January 18, 1847, he gave his daughter, 
then nineteen years of age, in marriage to Dr. 
Ticknor. 

Mrs. Ticknor and her two sisters were widely 
known and honored for their intellect and graces of 
manner. To quote the poet himself : "From what I 
know of Rosalie, Evelyn and Maria, it would take an 
extra sense not given to man to find a higher, truer 
womanhood than they possess." 

Shell Creek continued to be the home of Dr. Tick- 
nor and his wife until after 1850. Two children, 
Harry and Lucy Evelyn, were born there, but both 
died in childhood. Their other children are Dr. 
Douglas Cairns of Columbus, Ga. ; George William, 
who died in Columbus, aged thirty-nine ; Maria Nel- 
son, died aged seven ; Thomas Michelle of Albany, 
Ga. (the father of the author of this sketch, married 
December 29, 1886, Miss May V. Cutliff of Albany) ; 
Francis Orray and William Nelson, also of Albany, 
the other sons, are married and are successful busi- 
ness men. 

From Shell Creek the Ticknors moved to Torch 
Hill, seven miles from Columbus. According to 
tradition, a famous Indian battle was once fought 
on the hill by torch light, hence the name, although 
some attribute it to the red clay soil of that part of 
the State. Of his home Paul Hayne says: "Any- 
thing more picturesque than the view from Torch 

13 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

Hill would be hard to imagine. The house over- 
looks for miles on miles the Chattahoochee Valley, 
full of waving grain fields and opulent orchards. 

"With the poet's love for all that is pure, sweet 
and natural, he (Ticknor) soon surrounded his home 
with flowers and fruits. In the spring and summer 
I have heard it described as a perfect Eden of roses, 
while toward autumn the crimson foliage and blush- 
ing tints of the great mellow apples, especially if 
touched with sunset lights, caused the 'Hill' to gleam 
and glitter as with the colors of fairyland. Here in 
this peaceful nest Ticknor lived for nearly a quarter 
of a century, exceptionally blessed in his domestic 
relations, though more than once that Dark Presence 
no mortal can shun entered his household, to leave 
it for a season desolate. Here he dreamed high 
dreams and beheld pleasant visions." 

Flowers and fruits amounted to almost a passion 
with the poet, as also did music. He was familiar 
with all the operas of the day, and was himself a 
skilful performer on the flute. Often he would steal 
into the woods with that instrument and play, as in 
fact he wrote, merely for his own pastime. 

With such a temperament he was naturally sensi- 
tive, and had a horror of having his own manuscripts 
lying around. His wife tells how she hid every scrap 
of his writing as a priceless treasure, and that often 
on her return from a visit she found that he had dis- 
covered and burned them, though he was careful to 
save any useless scribblings of the children. 

i4 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

When the Civil War grew from fear into a reality, 
he espoused the cause of the Confederacy. Dr. C. 
Alphonso Smith says: "He was a man of rooted 
convictions, but without bitterness. The prayer of 
his heart was for peace, as in 'Ora Pace.' " 

So kindly was his nature, that even during the 
awful days of Reconstruction his word-painting of 
men and matters of the times contain no violent 
harangues. They were for the most part harmless 
caricatures of incidents, many now forgotten, which 
appealed to his sense of humor. His soul was able 
to rise above the turbulent times, and sing : 

"Though the darkness of desolation 

Comes close to each home and heart, 
Though the 'Raven' retains his station, 

And his shadow will not depart — 
His burthen of life is lightest 

Who stoutly accepts the Past, 
And lives in the hopes of the brightest, 

And 'works' for the best till the last." 

This poet-physician was never commissioned, so 
he was never engaged in field service, but was in 
charge of the hospitals in and about Columbus. All 
his time was required to attend the sick and wounded, 
and his death from pneumonia on December 18, 
1874, at the age of fifty- two years, is attributed to 
exposure at this period. 

No better brief summary of his life and work can 
be made than that given by Paul Hayne : "Art 
opened to his soul not one alone, but several of her 
fairest domains. He was a gifted musician, playing 

IS 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

exquisitely upon the flute, and a draughtsman of the 
readiest skill and taste. Still I picture him always 
as pre-eminently, the poet — the poet 'born/ yet with 
every natural endowment purified and strengthened 
by careful, scholarly culture. 

"Thus much for one side of his life. There was 
another side, stirring, practical, and often rife, as the 
physician's career necessarily must be, with sad or 
terrible details. If a spiritual 'Lotos-Eater' while 
'sporting with his muse, in the shade,' he was all 
energy, eagerness and well-directed power in the 
paths of his profession. No more experienced doctor 
or successful scientist than he could be found in the 
county which chanced to be the scene of his labors. 
He united a broad humanity and a tender gracious- 
ness of tone and bearing to the information of the 
savant and the skill of the medical expert. Every- 
body loved him, especially the suffering poor, to 
whom he devoted a great deal of his time and atten- 
tion. Unostentatious in his religion, but profoundly 
sincere in his Christian belief and practice, he re- 
garded the poverty-smitten and the unfortunate as 
pensioners directly assigned to his care by Provi- 
dence. 

"Far and wide among the 'sand-barrens' or in the 
farmhouses of the neighboring valley the good and 
wise physician was known and welcomed. His glee- 
ful smile, his spontaneous witticisms (for his mind 
actually bubbled over with innocent humors), 
cheered many a despondent invalid, and, it is pos- 

16 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

sible, scared Despair, if not Death himself, away 
from the bedsides of patients just about finally to 
succumb. 

"What wonder, therefore, that when — partly 
through fatigue, exposure and the unremitting dis- 
charge of duty — their benefactor was in his turn 
stricken clown to die after a brief, painful illness, the 
community mourned him as only those are mourned 
who could truly say, like Abou ben Adhem, in his 
vision of the Angel and the Book of Gold, 'Write me 
as one who loved his fellow-men.' 

"This imperfect outline of Ticknor's life was 
necessary to the full comprehension of his poetry. 
'Brief swallow-flights of song' only were possible to 
a man whose days and nights were so occupied by 
important and exciting toils. And in some respects 
this was forunate, since the comparatively little 
leisure enjoyed by the poet forced him to concen- 
trate his powers — to utilize them to the very best 
advantage. 

"When the great Civil War began Ticknor had 
just reached the verge of middle age. His intellec- 
tual forces were in their fullest bloom, and so it is 
not surprising that many of his ablest songs belong 
to this period." 

Most of Dr. Ticknor's verses were written on pre- 
scription blanks while in the saddle. His patients, 
knowing his fondness for writing, would frequently 
supply him paper with which to while away the time 
during a watch by a bedside. On one occasion, in 

17 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

the cabin of a painfully destitute family, the father 
handed him "Prometheus, half unbound," as the 
poet wrote, saying: "It ain't nothin' to read, but 
there's a page of white inside if you want to write." 

His son Douglas tells how, in accompanying his 
father on his rides, he would often be given the reins 
while Dr. Ticknor would write line after line on the 
margin of his newspaper. Thus "The Gray Going 
Home," written to his horse that had served through 
the war, was scribbled on the edges of a New York 
Times while driving at twilight from Columbus to 
Torch Hill, with the horse much bespattered with 
red mud. 

Lucian Lamar Knight says : "Minstrelsy and med- 
icine are usually too much at variance to mix in 
the Temple of the Muses, but Dr. F. O. Ticknor, 
while urging his horse over the country roads around 
Columbus, bore his saddle-bags into fame by making 
his prescription blanks the leaflets on which he wrote 
his immortal lyrics. The spontaneity of his genius 
is sufficiently attested by the sprightly measure of his 
verses, which vividly suggest the stirrup. Intent 
upon his professional engagements, he gathered his 
inspiration chiefly by the roadside; but never gal- 
loped horseman more surely into fame since Paul 
Revere in 1775 awoke the dawn of American Inde- 
pendence and bore the signal fires to Lexington. 

"The rhythmic ring of the horse's hoof can be dis- 
tinctly heard in the opening lines of the poem enti- 
tled : 'The Sword in the Sea' : 

18 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

" 'The billows plunge like steeds that bear 
The knights with snow-white crests ; 
The sea-winds blare like bugles where 
The Alabama rests.' " 

In 1879 Miss Kate Mason Rowland published a 
small volume of Dr. Ticknor's poems, which is the 
only edition previous to this. It contains an intro- 
ductory notice by Paul Hayne, which has been freely 
quoted in this sketch. Any changes from Miss 
Mason's book are made from the original manu- 
scripts. Ill-health prevented Paul Hayne from com- 
piling a complete volume of Dr. Ticknor's work. 
There existed between the two poets a warm per- 
sonal friendship and mutual admiration. 

Mrs. Ticknor still, at the age of eighty-one, retains 
every faculty and the lovely qualities which have 
endeared her to all. She is a devout Churchwoman, 
and has always been interested in noble charities for 
the betterment of the working people. She is ex- 
cessively modest, with great gentleness of disposi- 
tion, and an extensive reader over a wide range of 
literature. One of the earliest recollections of her 
is as she read aloud to her boys in a soft, low voice — 
that "most excellent thing in woman" — at the same 
time knitting some garment to give comfort to others. 
Dr. C. Alphonso Smith describes her as "a woman in 
every way fitted to quicken by appreciation her hus- 
band's devotion to letters and to enter by her breadth 
of sympathy into the wider and more practical de- 
mands of his profession. 

19 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

"The author of this sketch would like to assure her 
that her loyalty to her husband's memory, her just 
appreciation of his real worth as a man and as a poet, 
and her unshaken confidence in the ultimate triumph 
of his name and fame have already been vindicated 
by the verdict of the years and have themselves be- 
come a part of the history of Southern literature." 



20 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR* 

The Lyric Poet of Georgia 
Paul Hamilton Hayne 

No one acquainted with the poetical literature of 
the late war can have forgotten the noble contribu- 
tions to it of Dr. Francis Orray Ticknor, of Colum- 
bus, Ga. "The Virginians of the Valley" and "Little 
Giffin" are alone sufficient to prove that Dr. Ticknor 
was a genuine poet, and he has left behind him ( for 
alas ! he died two years ago) a large number of 
ether pieces, almost all of them bearing the stamp of 
genius; and so admirable both in conception and 
execution, that for the honor of the State, no less 
than his own, they ought to be collected and pub- 
lished in book form. Dr. Ticknor was essentially a 
lyrist. Invariably his thought molded itself into the 
lyrical form, and we find in his best and character- 
istic verses a resonance of meter and a rhythmic 
ring ("as it were, the sounding of some silver 
trumpet,") which fires the blood and causes the 
heart to beat a bold, martial measure. 

Take the following poem, which has too often 
been published anonymously, as a brilliant illustra- 
tion of its author's power. It refers to the indom- 
itable bravery of our "left wing" at Manassas — the 
First Manassas — and is truly as gallant a "war 



*From the Augusta Chronicle, September 4, 1876. 
1858 



21 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

song" as ever was penned, from the age of Tyrannus 
to the time of Walter Scott ! 

OUR LEFT 
First Manassas 

From dawn to dark they stood 
That long midsummer day, 

While fierce and fast 

The battle blast 
Swept rank on rank away. 

From dawn to dark they fought, 
With legions torn and cleft; 

And still the wide 

Black battle-tide 
Poured deadlier on "Our Left." 

They closed each ghastly gap; 
They dressed each shattered rank; 

They knew — (how well) — 

That Freedom fell 
With that exhausted flank. 

"Oh, for a thousand men 
Like these that melt away!" 

And down they came, 

With steel and flame, 
Four thousand to the fray! 

They leaped the laggard train — 
The panting steam might stay — 

And down they came, 

With steel and flame — 
Four thousand to the fray. 

Right through the blackest cloud 
Their lightning path they cleft; 

And triumph came — 

With deathless fame — 
To "Our" unconquered "Left." 

22 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

Ye, of your sons secure, 
Ye, of your dead bereft, 

Honor the brave 

Who died to save 
Your all upon "Our Left." 

I beg my readers to remark the fiery terseness, the 
concentrated vigor and spirit of this fine lyric. 
There is not a single unnecessary word, far less line 
in it, from the beginning to the end. And, like all 
true battle-lyrics, it is passionately picturesque. One 
sees the contending hosts ; the flash of arms and the 
desperate struggle for supremacy ; the dust, the tur- 
moil, the desperation, the horror! And just when 
all hope seems lost to the feebler party, how like a 
whirlwind we behold the "four thousand push head- 
long to the fray" ! In a different vein, but full of 
pregnant though homely humor, is Ticknor's ballad 
called 'The Old Rifleman." Nobody, not even the 
most furious of the old Abolitionists, need take 
offense at this poem now. It has become part of the 
ballad literature of the country; for sectionalism in 
literature is, or at all events ought to be, dead. I 
don't see why a Yankee soldier himself should not 
laugh at the description of "Old Bess' " virtues in 
the shooting line. Of course twelve years ago it 
was very different. "Bess" might have been consid- 
ered rather personal in her attentions just then. I 
quote this spirited ballad entire : 



23 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 



THE OLD RIFLEMAN 

Now bring me out my buckskin suit, 

My pouch and powder too ; 
We'll see if seventy-six can shoot 

As sixteen used to do! 

Old Bess, we've kept our barrel bright, 

Our trigger quick and true, 
As far, if not as fine a sight, 

As long ago we drew ! 

And pick me out a trusty flint ! 

A real white and blue ! 
Perhaps 'twill win the other tint 

Before the hunt is through ! 

Give boys your brass percussion caps, 

Old "shut-pan" suits us well, 
There's something in the spark; perhaps 

There's something in the smell ! 

We've seen the red-coat Briton bleed; 

The red-skin Indian too; 
We've never thought to draw a bead 

On Yankee-Doodle-Doo ! 

But Bessie! bless your dear old heart! — 

Those days are mostly done, 
And now we must revive the art 

Of shooting on the run. 

If Doodle must be meddling, why 

There's only this to do — 
Select the dark spot in his eye 

And let the daylight through! 

And if he doesn't like the way, 

That Bess presents the view, 
He'll maybe change his mind, and stay 

Where the good Doodles do ! 

24 



FRANCIS ORRAY TICKNOR 

As Timrod was par excellence the war-poet of 
South Carolina, so was Ticknor the war-poet of 
Georgia. I would fain remind our generous-hearted 
people of what he has done (let me repeat) for their 
fame quite as much as his own ; and thus inaugurate 
measures whereby the intellectual remains of a ver- 
satile, manly, yet tender genius may be collected and 
preserved for the benefit of coming generations! 
Ah, fellow-countrymen, it is an ancient truth, but 
how little regarded, that the materialisms of trade 
and commerce and finance are not all that constitute 
a nation's glory. Strengthen your trade prosperity 
by an alliance with the vitality of art. Do not honor 
exclusively (as too often you have done hitherto) 
your great agricultural and railroad capitalists, your 
heroes of the loom, the bank, the exchange, but 
reserve a place in your esteem and grateful remem- 
brance for those who have wrought through spir- 
itual and mental agencies, and whose words, with 
recognition, shall not die ! 



25 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

In his introductory notice of Dr. Ticknor, Hayne 
criticises his poems as follows : 

" The Virginians of the Valley.' Is not this, 
reader, a splendid lyric? Whether you are of the 
North or the South, especially now that the old sec- 
tional animosities seem to be dying out, I feel sure 
you must alike admire it. The verve and fire of the 
conception and the straightforward simple powers 
of the execution make it a most impressive ballad. 
James Russel Lowell in a recent 'Ode' has eloquently 
praised Virginia; but there is a heart-drawn pathos, 
a half-subdued passion, in Ticknor's poem which 
seems to be more effective still. Apropos of the lat- 
ter's style, James Maurice Thompson, himself so 
true a lyrist, has remarked that 'it is best suited to 
forceful ballads. Something in the direct, clear, 
ringing expression of his 'Virginians' reminds us of 

" 'Mais quand la pauvre champagne, 
Fut en proie aux etrangers, 
Lui, bravant tous las dangers, 
Semblait seul tenir la campagne.' " 



a n 



'With Ticknor, as with Beranger, strength is 
simplicity, art is naturalness.' Mr. Thompson con- 
tinues : 'Few poets acknowledge that, to stir the feel- 
ings and reach the inmost heart of the masses, one 
must make use of these materials which are suited 
to the vulgar understanding. See the final stanza of 

26 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

that inimitable ballad, "La Vache Perdue," by Casi- 
mer Delavigne: 

" 'Un soir, a ma fenetre, 
Neva, pour t'abriter, 
De la corne peut-etre, 
Tu reviendras heurter. 
Si la famille est morte, 

Neva. 
Qui t'ouvriva la porte, 

Ah! ah! Neva!'" 

"'Now Ticknor's ballad of "Little Giffen" is a 
ballad precisely of the style of Delavigne. The 
opening stanza is a bold swell of music, something 
clarion-like. . . . The identical rhyme of the last 
couplet one loses sight of in the exceeding terseness 
of the language, the outright vigor of the rhetorical 
stroke. Most poets dally with their conceptions. 
But this one seizes his idea at once, thrusts it into a 
position of strong relief, fastens it there, and is 
done. Technically speaking, his style is dynamic. 
. . . The poem rounds off half-solemnly, half- 
playfully. . . . Now here is no straining after 
effect, no floundering to get up a foam; but that 
sturdy art which is the spirit of a genuine popular 
ballad.' 

"Another poem, which explains itself — an abso- 
lutely perfect ballad (me judice) — I cannot resist 
the pleasure of extracting. Was ever the historical 
incident it commemorates more feelingly and vividly 
described ? These verses are simply entitled 'Loyal/ 
. . . A single other lyric associated with the war 

27 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

and its sorrows, and I shall close, 'Unknown.' . . . 
Ah! how many thousands must be still living to 
whom this ballad, rounded and limpid as a tear, 
though simple almost to baldness in expression, 
must appeal with a pathos not to be resisted ! Burns 
himself was not more direct, more transparently 
honest in his metrical appeals, than Ticknor. There 
are no fantastic conceits, no far-fetched similes, no 
dilettanteism of any sort in his verses. 

"The man's soul — sturdy, yet gentle, stalwart, yet 
touched by a feminine sweetness — 'informed' them 
always; and, if it can hardly be said of his lyrics 
that each was 'polished as the bosom of a star,' still 
the light irradiating them seldom failed to be light 
from the heaven of a true inspiration." 

Charles W. Hubner, in his "Representative South- 
ern Poets," says : "It would seem that the vocation 
of a 'country doctor,' with its hard work day and 
night, its monotonous round of constant and ex- 
haustive duties, making heavy drafts upon all the 
mental and physical resources, besides the lack of 
the stimulating social and intellectual influences 
which characterize metropolitan life — it would seem 
that such an environment would offer slight induce- 
ments and few opportunities to anyone so situated, 
to cultivate esthetics, indulge in dreams of the im- 
agination, and time for wooing the Muse of Poetry. 
But genius is an insistent, an irresistible power; it 
penetrates every barrier, overcomes every obstacle, 
making them, indeed, stepping-stones to success, and 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

finds congenial nourishment for its sustenance, and 
the enjoyment of the divinest delights -of life, in cir- 
cumstances and environments which, to ungifted 
natures, would be as dry and barren as sands of the 
desert. A 'country doctor' of the finest type of his 
profession, a good and, therefore, a noble man, and 
a poet of decided genius, was Dr. Francis O. Tick- 
nor. ... In his martial lyrics and poems Tick- 
nor's genius exhibits itself in its most impressive 
flights. In the power of passionate feeling, in terse, 
concentrated diction, clear, ringing music, and ideal- 
istic imagery, the poetry evolved by the incidents, 
the pathos, the glory and the gloom of our Civil War 
shows but few examples that can be considered su- 
perior to the best of Ticknor's contributions to that 
phase of our American literature. . . . 

"Another poem of his, which commemorates the 
fate of the Confederate cruiser Alabama and twines 
a wreath of laurel about the name of its gallant cap- 
tain, also fully reaches the high-water mark of Tick- 
nor's lyric gift; its rhythmic, easy swing, its allu- 
sions to the splendor and mystery of the sea, its 
v/ealth of fine metaphors, and the spirit of olden 
romance breathing from its vivid and throbbing 
lines, place it in the foremost of ballads of its 
kind. . . . 

"A word or two of Ticknor's rare gem of a poem 
called 'Little Giffen,' one of his war-ballads. It is 
better known, perhaps, than any other of his poems, 
and well deserves its prominent place in the volumi- 

29 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

nous collection of our American war poetry. Its 
terrible pathos, its stern realism, — picturing in a few 
masterly lines the horror, the gloom and glory of 
war, — the passion of patriotism, the heroic sense of 
duty inflaming the soul of even a mere boy of six- 
teen, and the splendid fervor of the concluding 
stanza give to this ballad the distinction it has won 
in popular esteem. While there were scores of such 
youthful heroes on both sides in our Civil War, yet 
the fact that this poem was not the creation of a 
poet's fancy, but the incident as related actually hap- 
pened — Dr. Ticknor being the "good Samaritan" 
who took the poor battle-battered stripling-hero to 
his house and nursed him — adds unique interest to 
the story. 

"In Link's Tioneers of Southern Literature' Dr. 
Ticknor is spoken of thus : 'The one who has writ- 
ten some of the best poetry produced in America is 
the least known of all our poets.' A few years ago 
Mr. Powell, one of the editors of The Independent, 
wrote in reference to a poem as follows: Tf it be 
possible to have collected and put out a volume of 
lyrics like that, it will constitute the finest volume 
ever issued in the United States, if not in the Eng- 
lish language.' This poem was entitled 'Loyal,' and 
was written by Dr. Frank O. Ticknor. . . . 
While Ticknor's war songs were full of fire and 
verve, he was not alone or chiefly a war poet, but 
sang of friends and home with delightful charm. 
This was natural, since he loved his friends, and 

30 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

made his own home so beautiful. 'Twilight/ 
•'Among the Birds/ 'The Hills/ 'The Flowers/ and 
many others show that he saw things about him with 
a poet's eyes — that the spirit of poesy often came 
down upon the grand doctor and decked all the dear 
familiar scenes with a halo of beauty. How much 
must such a man get out of life ! He loved the beau- 
tiful, and portrayed it because he could not help it. 
He loved the heroic, hence martial fire leaped from 
his pen. What would have been to others a red- 
headed, freckled-face, crippled soldier boy, was to 
him a hero, a knight of princely courage. Next to 
enacting great deeds and living great lives is the 
ability to understand and be lifted up by the great- 
ness and unselfishness of heroic human souls. This 
man of heroic mold, but womanly sweetness, is him- 
self a poem of precious beauty. The ideal life 
sparkles out through all his jeweled lines. The busy 
doctor died in the prime of life, and deep was the 
grief of his neighbors. He loved them, and they 
loved him, though they suspected not all his great- 
ness of soul. He had lived his creed : 

" The man with little love shall find 
But little loving in mankind;' 

"He had laid out for humanity earnest zeal and 
unselfish devotion. . . . 

"The real description of this lettered country-man 
is found in 'Poeta in Rure.' . . . Ticknor's love 
for children is shown in his child songs, fresh and 

3i 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

playful. Of that kind, 'Whip-Poor-Will' and the 
'Echo Story' are among the most sprightly ever 
penned. . . . Among his religious poems, 'The 
Beauty of Holiness,' 'Easter,' and 'The Church' are 
full of cheerful hope and redolent with sacred 
beauty. . . . While his range of poetic vision 
was not so extensive as that of some others, while 
he might resemble the old harpsichord of one un- 
broken string of which he sings : 

" 'One chord in thy heart unbroken ! 
One key to that chord alone ! 
A touch — and thy thought hath spoken ; 
A sign — and thy song hath flown !' 

yet he had the true poetic insight. When the reck- 
oning shall have been made, it will be found that this 
unostentatious country physician has made a perma- 
ment addition to American literature." 

"There is more than music in his verse," writes 
Holliday in his "History of Southern Literature." 
"Oftentimes there is a deal of fire and vim in these 
lyrics. Notice in 'Little Giffen' the dramatic 
abruptness with which this story of a wounded boy 
is told, how in reading one almost forgets the rhyme 
and rhythm in the eagerness to hear the story. True 
art does not display its art. The same intensity 
might be illustrated by others of his simple, ballad- 
like poems — 'Loyal,' for instance. Ticknor is known 
best by his war-poems ; but some of his nature poems 
are of superior merit. 'The Hills/ 'Among the 
Birds,' 'April Morning' and others whose titles are 

32 



TICKNOR'S POEMS— CRITICISMS 

significant show the man's love for those things 
'whose Maker and Builder is God.' Here, then, we 
have one who wrote, and wrote well, with no hope 
of reward from the outside world. Many of his 
poems never appeared in periodicals. He sang sim- 
ply because he loved to sing. Therefore in the un- 
affected lines we find each thought and each emotion 
singularly imbued with sincerity and sweetness." 

"Perhaps with more leisure," writes Dr. W. P. 
Trent in his "Southern Writers," "Ticknor would 
have secured a considerably higher place in South- 
ern literature; yet the work he did, despite its lim- 
itations, ought to have given him more fame during 
his life and secured him much more consideration 
from posterity than has been allotted him." 

Dr. Ewald Flugel, in his "Die Nordamerikanische 
Literatur" (Leipzig and Wien, 1907), page 529, 
says : 

"Ein klassisches Kriegsgedicht von der sudlichen 
Seite, das Theodore O'Hara's 'Bivouak der Toten' 
an Bedeutung erreicht, ist das Meisterstiick des 
Arztes Francis Orray Ticknor (1822-74) 'Der 
Kleine Giffen von Tennessee' (Little Giffen of 
Tennessee), die Geschichte des Heldenknaben von 
achtzehn Schlachten und sechzehn Jahren; der von 
seinem Sterbebette aufspringt, un seinem alten 
Fuhrer in die letzte Schlacht zu folgen." 



33 



LITTLE GIFFEN 

"Little Giffen" is, perhaps, the best known of Dr. 
Ticknor's poems. Maurice Thompson says: "If 
there is a finer lyric than this in the whole realm of 
poetry I should like to read it." In his "Library of 
Southern Literature" Dr. C. Alphonso Smith says : 
"In the simplicity of its pathos, the intensity of its 
appeal, and the dramatic concentration of its 
thought 'Little Giffen' ranks among the best short 
poems of American literature." The same author, 
in his "Address on Southern Literature," places it 
among the first of the "seven occasional poems" of 
America. Pancoast in his "Introduction to Ameri- 
can Literature" writes that it "has a concentrated 
force and directness which make it not unworthy of 
comparison with some of Browning's shorter narra- 
tive poems." 

"Little Giffen" first appeared in November, 1867, 
in The Land We Love, a paper published at Char- 
lotte, N. C., by General D. H. Hill. The story is 
true in every detail. 

During the Civil War places of business were 
often converted into temporary hospitals, and to one 
of these — the old "Banks" building, still standing at 
Columbus, Ga., — the boy Giffen was brought, hav- 
ing been wounded, probably at Murfreesboro or 
Chickamauga. Mrs. Rosa Nelson Ticknor with her 
sisters, Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Woolfolk, daily visited 

34 



LITTLE GIFFEN 



the improvised hospitals to administer to the suffer- 
ers. Mrs. Ticknor was strongly drawn towards "Lit- 
tle Giffen." After her return to her home, seven miles 
from town, she remembered the sharpness of the 
boy's bones against her hands as she raised him for 
nourishment. On Dr. Ticknor's arrival she begged 
him to bring Giffen to Torch Hill, which he did, in 
his own carriage, though the attending surgeon in- 
sisted that it was worse than useless. Dr. and Mrs. 
Ticknor with the aid of a faithful "Mammy" nursed 
Giffen back to health after many weary weeks of 
suspense. During his convalescence Mrs. Ticknor 
taught him to read and write. According to ac- 
counts he was an ordinary-looking little fellow, 
except for his eyes. His name was Isaac Newton 
Giffen, and his father was a blacksmith in the moun- 
tains of east Tennessee. So much is certain. His 
part in eighteen battles and freedom from injury 
except in the last, the story of his march, wounded 
and ill, how he and others would lie down in the 
road to drink the water from mud-puddles, and 
other events of his war career, were sources of un- 
tiring entertainment to the children, and by amusing 
them he was a great help to Mrs. Ticknor. Giffen 
came to Torch Hill in September, 1863, and left in 
March, 1864. On the day of his departure he and 
Douglas Ticknor started from Torch Hill to Colum- 
bus, riding an old gray army horse; at Bull Creek 
the water was unusually high and the horse lost the 
road, fell into a washout, and both boys were 

35 



LITTLE GIFFEN 



thrown. Douglas and the horse came ashore on the 
Torch Hill side, while the current carried Giffen 
across the creek. From there he waved his last 
good-by, and climbed wet and muddy into the 
wagon of a negro going to town. Nothing further 
was ever heard of him, and there is no doubt that he 
met death in some immediate encounter. 
In the first composition the last stanza read : 

"Many such on a summer day- 
Rake the meadows and mow the hay; 
Of freckled face and pale blue eye, 
To whom no bird or squirrel is shy — 
Mark the plainest— and he might be 
Little Giffen of Tennessee !" 



This was changed by the poet before appearing in 
print, to : 

"I sometime fancy that when I'm king 
And my gallant courtiers form a ring, 
All so thoughtless of power or pelf, 
And each so loyal to all but self, 
I'd give the best, on his bended knee, 
Yea, barter the whole for the loyalty 
Of little Giffen of Tennessee." 

Later it was rewritten as given in the present 
version. 



36 



SENTIMENT AND HUMOR 



SENTIMENT AND HUMOR 



GRAY 

Something so human-hearted 

In a tint that ever lies 
Where a splendor has just departed 

And a glory is yet to rise ! 

Gray in the solemn gloaming, 

Gray in the dawning skies ; 
In the old man's crown of honor, 

In the little maiden's eyes. 

Gray mists o'er the meadows brooding, 
Whence the world must draw its best ; 

Gray gleams in the churchyard shadows, 
Where all the world would "Rest." 

Gray gloom in the grand cathedral, 
Where the "Glorias" are poured, 

And, with angel and archangel, 
We wait the coming Lord. 

Silvery gray for the bridal, 

Leaden gray for the pall ; 
For urn, for wreath, for life and death, 

Ever the Gray for all. 

Gray in the very sadness 

Of ashes and sackcloth; yea, 
While our raiment of beauty and gladness 

Tarries, our tears shall stay; 
And our souls shall smile through their sadness, 

And our hearts shall wear the Gray. 

January I, 1868 

39 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE PRISONER AT GLATZ 

From the life of Frederick William III of Prussia 

One in his palace : One at the bars 
Of a dungeon, under the Alpine stars; 
Doomed! and never hath dungeon's scope 
Closed on a darker farewell to hope. 
Years ! and ever that icy gleam ; 
Years ! and only the eagle's scream, 
Cleaving the clouds in its sunward flight, 
Hath cheered his soul at that awful height. 

He hath bared his soul at a deadlier height 
With icier bonds, but he weeps to-night. 
Not for his hopes that have faded dim ; 
Nor the failing light, nor the fettered limb! 
Other than anguish hath melted him, 
That fell with a light from the starry dome 
On a single line in an ancient tome, 
"In the time of thy trouble, call thou on Me; 
And, lo ! My love shall deliver thee !" 
And his soul is bowed like a bended knee, 
And his tears are wept from a heart as full 
As the night with stars, with the beautiful 
Child-like trust in the Merciful. 

One in his palace — the bride of night, 
Beautiful sleep, hath fled his sight, 
Sick and faint with the woe and weight 
Of the golden thorns that crown the great — 
Moans, as the stricken who moan for light 
In the dark "mid-watch," and at dawn, for night ; 
"All my realm for the sweet release 
From a monarch's pain to a peasant's peace !" 
40 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A soft step stole through the silent gloom, 

A sweet voice read from "an ancient tome" — 

Sweeter sounds may not soothe the sense — 

Of the pitying love and the innocence 

Of Christ ; and there came the sweep 

Of angel's wings, and brought him sleep ! 

One in his palace, the dawn astir, 

Saith to his sweet-voiced Comforter: 

"All my realm by the east and west, 

All my glory, hath never blest 

My soul like this great crown- jewel Rest! 

Tell me now of the heaviest woe 

That dwells to-day with my deadliest foe 

Of yesterday or of long ago ; 

For, as the Lord hath regarded me. 

My soul would pardon mine enemy." 

And the soft voice answered : "The sorrow that's 

Under the icy stars at Glatz !" 

Aye! There are pinions of farther flight 

Than the eagle's scream or the Alpine height 

To answer the captive's call to-night ! 

Mercy ! — waiting through all our years — 

Waiting one signal, our Trust, our Tears ! 



VISITING THE VALLEY OF THE 
SHENANDOAH 

Ye walk by famous waters 
By famous fountains fed, 

Oh, best of Heaven's daughters 
In the Eden of the dead, 

Where swept the swiftest slaughter 
That ever valor led. 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Beside the Shenandoah! 

Beneath the willow trees! 
The mountains ever more 

Crowned with their memories, 
And when shall marble soar 

With blazonings like these? 

Look long upon the splendor 
Of mountain and of plain, 

Till rays as grand and tender 
Illuminate again 

The faith that can't surrender 
While the blue hills remain. 



THE OLD HARPSICHORD 

"In one room of this deserted mansion we came upon an 
old harpsichord with a single unbroken string. Evoking 
the last sound from it, we extracted the key, which you will 
find herewith. — Letter from the Old Dominion. 

What of the night, old sleeper? 

What of thy watch so lone? 
Of the darkness and dust, and deeper, 

The silence that shrouds thine own? 
What song for the tuneless Reaper 

Who binds all songs in one ? 
Crown thou his sheaf, oh sleeper, 

With a requiem monotone ! 

One chord in thy heart unbroken! 

One key to that chord alone ! 
A touch — and thy thought hath spoken; 

A sound — and thy song hath flown ! 

42 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A sigh for the single token 

Of all who have sung and flown ! 
Of symphonies ceased forever, 

Of harmonies heard no more; 
Of chords that have ceased to quiver 

Or ever thy task was o'er : 
Songs and their symphonies never 

Dying in requiems more. 

Silence and darkness blended, 

Dust on a desolate shore, 
Footprints of angels ascended 

Around us forevermore. 
When the lips of the beautiful singers 

With the silvery chords lie cold, 
And only an echo lingers 

Of the melodies sweet and old, 
To blend 'neath their seraph fingers 

With a hymn from their harps of gold. 



THE COLONNADE 

A stillness in the lonely hall, 

A shadow on the vacant wall, 

A broken hearth, an incense flown, 

And dust upon the altar-stone ; 

What deeper gloom to match the shade 

That wraps the lonely Colonnade? 

White roses round the columns cling, 

White moonbeams in the flow'r may fling 

A mingled shadow, when appear 

The lost of many a lonely year, 

In phantom forms, that meet and fade 

Along the lonely Colonnade. 

43 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



No more beneath the moonlit leaves 
The evening star its song receives; 
For many golden chords are riven 
That sent that twilight song to heaven, 
And scattered far the feet that strayed 
Along the lonely Colonnade. 

No more in murmured tones rehearse 
The Hero's tale, the Lover's verse, 
Nor voice of song, nor sigh of flute, 
Where lips of sweeter tone are mute ; 
Oh, lips that loving hands have laid 
Far from the lonely Colonnade. 

Oh, Sister! if the Past imparts 
But dreams of sadness to our hearts, 
Why ask we of the coming years 
A better blessedness than tears 
Amid the pale white flowers arrayed 
Along life's lonely Colonnade ? 



SONG BY NIGHT 

Written for the Bachelors' Club of P , Virginia, and 

inscribed to Mrs. C . 

Sing, boys, sing ! while the starry wing 

Of the night is arching o'er us, 
Gentle and low, let the measure flow, 

Deepened and full to the chorus. 
A song we raise to the buried days, 

That were beaming with lightness only, 
Ere the brightness fled, ere the loved were dead, 

And we were left saddened and lonely. 

44 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And are these the days of the darkening haze, 

The mists whence no star may quiver ? 
And is this the moan of the monotone 

Of the dark and tideless river? 
We look not back on our weary track 

For the voice of a vanished chorus ; 
The lights are gone that have led us on, 

But the path lies straight before us. 

Let the hair grow white, let the failing sight 

Await but a clouded morrow ; 
We keep the faith that we pledged to Death 

And the troth we plighted Sorrow ! 
There are flowers that bloom by the quiet tomb 

Of the gentle, the true, and tender ; 
And they are all that our prayers recall, 

Or the sepulchre can surrender ! 

Are there forms as fair as we buried there? 

Are there lips with such fragrance laden? 
Are there sounds as sweet as the bounding feet 

That are white 'mid the lilies of Aidenne? 
It may be so, but they bring no glow 

To hearts that are haunted ever 
By the shadow that lies on the shrouded eyes, 

And the lips that are sealed forever. 

Let Death remove from the brows we love 

The damps of his dark'ning river ; 
Let Heaven restore on its shining shore 

The lost whom we love forever ! 
Their light alone on our pathway thrown, 

Their star to our darkness given, 
Shall lend its fires to the trembling wires 

That are linked to our hearts and Heaven. 

December 3, 1856 

45 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



TO THE LITTLE ROSALIE 
Rosa Wool folk (Mrs. Robert Obear) 

A little leaf from the rose's heart, 

A little drop of pearl, 
To write a little bit of a rhyme 

For a little bit of a girl ! 
Bright as the humming-bird, 

Sweet as the honey-bee, 
That all who sing to the flowers may sing 

To the little Rosalie ! 

The violet's dyes are in her eyes, 

Its softest velvet in 
The dimples, the dimples about her cheeks, 

The dimple upon her chin ! 
Ah ! well of the little humming-bird, 

Ah ! well of the little bee, 
To sing, to sing to as sweet a thing 

As the little Rosalie ! 

We think, we think of the starward palms 

Over the Orient seas, 
We drink, we drink of the blended balms 

From the bright Hesperides. 
We ask, we ask of the golden hours, 

Of blossom, and bird, and tree, 
A little lyric of stars and flowers 

For the little Rosalie ! 



46 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



IN A SUN-PICTURE 
To "Miss Evelyn" 

And again ! through our mists of sunset, 
And the shadows that shroud the day, 

There's a bloom from the blush of the morning, 
And a balm from the breath of May. 

The eyes of the little children ! 

And the children's voices ! sweet 
As a clover-scented carol 

That bursts at our weary feet! 

So our shadows are not so heavy, 

And our wrinkles are smooth, in truth, 

Our sunset touched by the sunshine 
As the world renews its youth. 

November, 1871 



"NINA"— HER EYES 
To Nina M 

I know the summers that can speak 

For all the olive of thy cheek ; 

I know the gentle lineage rare 

That crowns thy head with midnight hair; 

But whence — don't send me to the skies ! — 

The splendor, Nina, of your eyes ? 

Now, Nina, there's your needle ! Knit ! 

Your lashes drooped a little bit ; 

I'm writing "letters," and afraid 

Of brilliant cross-lights ; lend me shade. 

Nay ! there's a dimple at your lips, 

And there — you dazzle, past eclipse ! 

47 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Was it of much or little "grace" 
To mock these clouds of commonplace 
With a whole summer sunset's dyes, 
Because you must lift up your eyes? 
Sending my missive all amiss, 
Turning my "letter" into this! 

You couldn't help it ! Once, amid 
A temple's twilight, it betid 
The soft glow of a vestal's light 
Slept on the crosslet of a knight, 
And wrought — nor, Nina, might it less 
Of loyalty and tenderness — 
The matchless radiance that lies 
Deep in the splendor of your eyes ! 



BROWNIE BELLE, OF THE ESQUILINE 
To Belle M. L , on her return from Europe 

Where the almond blossoms first, 
Where the nectarines are nursed, 
Grew with cedar and with pine, 
Grew with violet and vine, 

With her brows of calm, 
And her eyes divine, 

With her breath of balm, 
And her blush like wine, 
Brownie Belle, of the Esquiline. 

Grew in grace, 
Like the blue glycine ; 

Grew in grace, 
Like a jessamine; 

48 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



In stateliness, 
Like a Norfolk pine ; 

With a tender gloom 
In her eyes divine, 

And her olive bloom 
Through her blush like wine ; 

Grew in grace, — 
And I knew the girl, 

From her dancing foot 
To her floating curl. 

Grew in grace, — 
And I knew her well, 

From the honey-dew 
To the nectar-cell ; 

From the morning mist, 
Till the manna fell 

On the tents, the lips 
Of Israel. 

In stateliness, like the star of trees 
With the silver lace, from the Indian seas, 
When the silver mist 
And the stars are met 
On her coronet ; 
On the stately crest of the stateliest 
Star-lit Tree-star, 
Bright Deodar. 

Sweet the air of the Esquiline, 
From morning prayer till nuts and wine ; 
Where the dancing gods of days divine 
Might dance on sods embroidered fine 
With the richest tints of the ripest wine 
Of every land where the sun doth shine. 



49 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



We'll garner all 

Of the bright and sweet ; 
We'll lay them all 

At our Brownie's feet. 
We'll gather all for a garland feast, 
When the stars recall our star from the 
East. 

When she comes, she comes 
With her balm and bloom ; 
And the tender gloom 

Of her eyes shall shine 
To crown the lights of the Esquiline. 

1859 



TO THE LITTLE LADY ALICE 

No dew distils on Georgia's hills, 
Or yet Circassia's valleys, 

That leaves a pearl on lily's curl 
As pure as Lady Alice! 

My lily-pet ! my violet ! 
My little Lady Alice ! 

As rare as rise through Southern skies 

Aurora-borealis ! — 
As rare as Rose on Northern snows, 

Or heart's ease in a palace, 
Is she sprite ! my brownie bright ! 

My little Lady Alice ! 

The wise old Greek his fate might seek, 
And bear his foes no malice ; 

And so might I, my idol's eye, 
If you but bore the chalice, 

50 



/ 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And drink to thee in three times three, 

My little Lady Alice ! 
My heart's delight ! my star of night ! 
My perfect little chrysolite ! 

My little Lady Alice ! 
1859 



SUNBEAM 
To Miss Emma V. Chilton 

It was an old philosopher, 

And also very wise, 
That had a little "prism" 

And specs upon his eyes ; 
And he caught a little sunbeam 

That he would analyze. 

It was a rare philosopher! 

He labored days and nights, 
And split his little sunbeam 

Into — seven — lights ; 
And he blessed his specs and prism 

That showed such lovely sights. 

And he gathered mighty glory 

For doing little more 
Than a little drop of water 

Had often done before; 
And his name, 'twas Newton, kindles 

'Till the light shall shine no more. 

Ah ! had he caught the sunbeam 

Our poet saw one day, 
He would have split his prism, 

And thrown his specs away; 

Si 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A clewdrop could have shown him 
More colors to the ray. 

Our poet keeps no prism 
Nor other glasses, — yet 

His simple optics sundered, — 
'Twixt pearl and violet, — 

At least a half a hundred ! — 
And he is counting yet ! 



TO A LADY OF TEXAS IN ITALY 

Mrs. Emma Chilton Maverick 

A thousand leagues of steam and foam> 
To breathe, tho' but an hour, in Rome ! 
To wake in Florence, or to be 
Cradled in Venice by the sea! 
Yet sometimes, lady, when thine eyes 
Are weary of yon wondrous skies, 
With all thy pulses languid grown 
To miracles in stain and stone, 
Seek thou some sacred fountain dim, 
A mirror with its marble rim, 
And bend thy "sunbeam" face to see 
The fairest thing in Italy! 
Yea, lovelier than the sunset seas, 
Kindled to guide the Genoese ! 



52 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



TO 



Offended by a compliment from a stranger 

What ! must the glowing heart forbear 

Its homage to the skies, 
When all the glories wandering there 

But wake to win our eyes ? 
Shall earth come forth in vain to wear 

Her robe of endless dyes, 
And not to aught of bright or fair 

Our adoration rise? 
Nay, from the sternest soul would steal 
The homage it could not conceal. 

The stars with but a lovelier ray 

Our lowly homage bless ; 
And earth receives with smiles more gay 

Our debt of thankfulness. 
Then why the deep emotion stay, 

The burning words repress, 
That fill the worship we would pay 

To woman's loveliness ? 
As pure as Heaven, than earth more fair, 
How dark the soul that bows not there ! 

Shell Creek, 
May 12, 1845 



THE BRIDE 
Mrs. Maria Nelson Woolfolk 

Her eyes are bright as stars that keep 
Their watch in midnight skies ; 

Her voice as sweet as winds that sweep 
The harps of Paradise. 

53 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And thou must quench the starry rays 
That make the midnight fair, 

Ere thou canst teach the heart to gaze 
And not to worship there. 

Learn, if thou wilt, from wisdom's store, 

The stoic's boasted art; 
And lose, like him, the only lore 

That could have cheered thy heart. 
Then die, for life hath naught of bloom 

Around thy path to shine ; 
And death can bring no deeper gloom 

To souls so dark as thine. 



THE VALLEY OF NACOOCHEE 

"Evening Star" 

Child of our Chattahoochee, 

Hid in the hills afar; 
Oh ! beautiful Nacoochee, 

Light of the Evening Star ! 

Smile of the dreaming maiden, 
Song of the bird's release ; 

Grace of the blest in Aidenne, 
Valley of light and peace. 

Clasped in the mountain shadows, 
The May dew on her breast, 

Her breath is the balm of meadows, 
Her name is a hymn to "Rest." 

The voice of a loved one calling 
To feet that have wandered far : 

Return, for the night is falling ; 
Rest with the Evening Star. 

54 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



AMERICA 

Editor of the Southern Statesman: At a dinner party on 
Christmas last a toast was given to "The Queen — the 
Mother of (a good many of) her people." To this was 
responded, "America: Room enough for them all." The 
author having expanded the idea into the following lines, 
begs leave respectfully to inscribe them "To the Know- 
Nothings." 

Room in my country, Room ! 

Room on her ample breast 
For the willing hand to work, 

And the weary heart to rest; 
For all who flee from the tyranny 

Of the "Old World" to the West ! 

Though under another sun 
His childhood saw the sky, 

Though under another sod 
His father's ashes lie — 

A deeper dust on his broken trust 
And his darkened memory. 

The home our Fathers built 
They builded wide and tall, 

With many a smiling portal 
And never a frowning wall, 

And strong without and warm throughout, 
And plenty of room for all. 

Room in her broad green fields, 

Room in her dusky mines, 
Where the gliding coulter gleams, 

Where the reaper's sickle shines, 
Under the eaves of his own green leaves, 

Under his own bright vines ! 

55 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Under his own bright vines ! 

And none to say him nay ! 
Room for his hands to rise, 

And his fetters to fall away ; 
Oh ! brothers, room for his heart to bloom, 

Room for his soul to pray ! 

To the sufferer over the sea, 

To the wanderer at the gate, 
To the loftiest in degree, 

To the lowliest in estate, 
One land alone on the broad earth's zone 

Can dare to be truly great ! 

Dread ye the darkened strength 

Of the stranger sad and lone, 
Should his soul awake at length 

From the sleep his sires have known ? 
Trust in the God that gave 

This green land to your own ! 
'Tis His to grace, in its fitting place, 

The clay as well as the stone. 

Though still to the wasted hands 

The iron's canker clings, 
Though still in his withered heart 

The rankling iron wrings ; 
The oak shall know its time to grow — 

The eagle shall find his wings. 

Aye! numberless as the sands, 

And fetterless as the foam, 
'Tis the hand of Heaven that sends — 

In God's name let them come! 
To a common share of Heaven's own air — 
To a Hope as well as a Home. 
Torch Hill, Ga., December, 1854 
56 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



GEORGIA 

Between her rivers and beside the sea, 

My Mother-land ! What fairer land can be ? 

The lyric rapture in her leaping rills, 
The crown-imperial on her purple hills. 

Her lips are pure that never breathed a curse; 
Her hands are white before the universe. 

Behold the witness of the King of Peace 
Clear, in the splendor of her dew-lit fleece. 

And lo ! the midnight of her shrouded mine 
Garners the radiance of the years to shine. 

Yea! the swart Gnome that bides his time below 
Shall rise at last in full regalia glow ! 

And the great Alchemist shall teach the Sun 
That Earth's great gloom and Life's great light 
are one ! 

Oh, sweetest souls that ever rose by prayer 
White from the furnace-dungeon of despair ! 

That wrought new grace from battle's chaos- 
mould, 
And reared new shrines from ashes not yet cold. 

Not cold! — from flames the strangest that have 

given 
From all this world, an altar-smoke to Heaven ! 

Crowned on the cross, above high- fetter line, 
They smile on hate with Love's own smile divine. 

57 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Prouder than hills that plume thy star-ward crest, 
Sweeter than dales that dimple at thy breast. 

Richer than Rome ! when God's great chariot rolls, 
Imperial Georgia ! count thy children's souls. 



VIRGINIA 



Triple triumph to thy spears, 
Virginia ! 

Daughter of the cavaliers, 

Virginia ! 

Let the timbrel and the dance 

Tell of thine anointed lance, 

Tell of thy deliverance, 

Virginia ! 

On the shore and by the sea, 
Virginia ! 
Thou hast triumphed gloriously, 

Virginia ! 
Loftier head of haughtier foe, 
Laid in dust of battle low, 
Never decked thy saddle-bow, 
Virginia ! 

Awful through thy blinding tears, 

Virginia ! 
Blazed the light of buried years, 

Virginia ! 
Spirits of the mighty dead 
Followed still thy battle tread, 
Followed where thy falchion led, 
Virginia ! 
58 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Heart to heart, they smote again, 

Virginia ! 
The savage and the Saracen, 

Virginia ! 
Soul to soul, as son and sire, 
Sword of wrath and heart of fire, 
Swept to vengeance swift and dire, 
Virginia ! 

Mailed in thy immortal wrong, 

Virginia ! 
Let thy sorrows make thee strong, 

Virginia ! 
Clothe thee, quarterdeck to keel, 
Harness thee from head to heel, 
Massive oak and sheeted steel, 
Virginia ! 

Onward yet, thou heart of gold, 

Virginia ! 
First in freedom's fight of old, 
Virginia ! 
Forward yet! the grace that flings 
The heart to death above a king's 
Shall follow where thy bugle sings, 
Virginia ! 



f ORA PACE" 



Ora Pace ! Pray for Peace ! 

Till these times of tumult cease ! 
Ye with heavy hearts and eyes, 
Watchers as the war-clouds rise, 

Though the shadows still increase, 

Gentle spirits! Pray for Peace! 

59 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Ora Pace ! Ye that lift 

The nation's weapons, keen and swift, 
Ere ye loose the thunder, pray 
That the wrath may pass away! 

Ere the lightnings ye release, 

Patriot statesmen, Pray for Peace ! 

Ora Pace! Ye that stand 

The shield and summer of the land; 

Though the blood is hot and high, 

Bounding for the battle-cry, 
Remember, boys, whose kiss ye bear, 
And pray for peace, ye sons of Prayer! 

Ora Pace! Who shall tread 

Our Lilies, when that prayer is said? 
Dark may be the sullen tide 
Of the stranger's lust and pride, 

But, our God shall still increase 

The strength that strikes and prays for Peace. 
1861 



ATLANTIS 



Down in the sunless deeps, 
Our lost Atlantis sleeps! 

Not as she sank below 
The deluge long ago. 

A star for the bridal drest, 
The glory of all the West. 

But white in her shrouded rest, 
And a chain across her breast. 

60 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Shall we weep while the waters roar, 
Or work with the Madrepore, 

With the nursing fires below, 

And the cradling earthquake's throe, 

To lift to the light again 
Atlantis, from shroud and chain 

Slow dawning out of her grave, 
Slow widening over the wave, 

From the islet's slender spear 
To the bloom of a hemisphere 

Whose hills salute the morn 
With the pomp of palm and corn, 

Whose verdurous valleys shine 
With the light of the oil and wine? 

Ah ! better than yonder hind — 
Dazzled by triumph blind, 

Whose share hath furrowed the sod 
To hillocks that cry to God, 

Whose scythe, as it sweeps the grain, 
Shines with an evil stain — 

To toil in the sunless stain, 
Where our lost Atlantis sleeps; 

To tarry a thousand years 
Till her Angel of Light appears. 



61 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



BATTLE FOR THE RIGHT 

To General James Bethune 

"Oh ! for the battle where all in all 
Is placed on the perilous cast." 

— "Marks of Burhamville." 

Then smite, if thy foes are 'round thee, 

And thou battiest for the right; 
Though the laurel hath ne'er crowned thee, 

Thou art victor if thou smite ! 
But not in thy dreams Elysian 

Thou speedest the battle on, 
Not in the sleeper's vision 

Is the victory lost or won. 

Each blow for the truth thou givest 

Is a triumph in the war, 
Each hour that thou truly livest 

Thou art truly Conqueror. 
Each night of thy sinless slumber 

That hails the setting sun, 
Thy destiny shall number 

As one brave victory won. 

Torch Hill, 1861 



THE CONQUEST OF LABOR 

Inscribed to Daniel Pratt, Esq., of Prattville 

There's a sound on the air of an army in motion, 
The thunder of war and the battles' loud boom; 

Each breeze that is borne o'er the wide-rolling ocean 
Is sad with its terror and dark with its gloom. 

62 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



But the sun that goes down on the blood-dripping 
sabre 
Shall rise on a scene that is lovelier far, 
Where the olive grows green and the Laurels of 
Labor 
Are won in the wild 'neath our own western star. 

From the stormy Atlantic their hosts are advanc- 
ing— 
On the far Rocky Mountains their legions are 
seen — 
Down the wilderness valleys their watch-lights are 
glancing, 
And the broad blue Pacific exults in their sheen. 

Ever around them rich blessings are springing — 
Ever before them the darkness retires ; 

Peace lends her song to their reveille's ringing, 
And Plenty reclines by their bivouac fires. 

Where round the dark anvil the red forge is gleam- 
ing— 
Where the swift shuttle flies, where the plow 
cleaves the sod — 
Round the hearth-stones of Toil rise the ramparts 
of Freemen, 
The Altars of Home and the Temples of God. 

And still may they rise, till their victories speeding 
Shall circle the earth with their mission sublime, 

Till the world that was fair in the morning of Eden 
Shall blossom again in the sunset of Time. 

And honor to him who shall honor his station 
In the land where his labor its earnest may find ; 

63 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Where the works of his hands are the pride of a 
nation, 
And the worth of his heart is the hope of mankind. 



Torch Hill, Ga., 
December 14, 1854 



THE RIVER 



Hold to the giant river, 

Ye, with a giant claim ! 
Yours from the great All-Giver, 

Yours in Jehovah's name ! 
By fireside, field, and altar, 

By temple, by grove, by grave, 
By the smiles and tears 
Of a hundred years, 
By the lifetime toil of your pioneers 

And the life-blood of your braves. 

De Soto sleeps in its bosom, 

Yet the dreamer's dream was truth, 
And he left to your watch the waters 

Of the world's immortal youth ; 
Yours from the fount of story, 

Yours till oblivion's wave, 
By the deed of your day of glory, 

By the seal of your Sidney's grave, 
For yourselves, for your sons, forever, 

And ever, to hold and to have ; 
The broad and abounding river, 

Down to the salt sea wave ; 
While the waters flow, 
Wliile the grasses grow, 
Till the last of your race lies cold and low, 

Or God forgets the brave ! 

64 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



UNKNOWN 

"To the Women of the South" decorating graves of 
Unknown Soldiers. 

The prints of feet are worn away, 
No more the mourners come; 

The voice of wail is mute to-day 
As his whose life is dumb. 

The world is bright with other bloom ; 

Shall the sweet summer shed 
Its living radiance o'er the tomb 

That shrouds the doubly dead? 

Unknown ! Beneath our Father's face 

The star-lit hillocks lie : 
Another rosebud ! lest His grace 

Forget us when we die. 



THE CAUCASIAN 

Chained to the icy peak, 
Rent by the vulture's beak, 

Scourged of the bitter brine ; 
Brother of Caucasus, 
The gods have wrought on us 

Horrors to rival thine! 

In the wilderness wreck we stand, 
In the depths of the desolate land, 

To our dead in their graves we cry : 
"Brothers ! that rest in peace 
In the land where the wicked cease, 

Is it better to live or die ?" 

65 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And our dead from their graves reply 
"The Merciful moves on high. 

The arm of His strength is nigh, 
In the sorrows that learn of Faith 
To smile in the eye of Death. 

It is braver to live than to die !" 



HOLLAND 



Brave Holland of the broad sea nursed, 
Where the blue billows roll and burst 
From the bleak, bitter north. In thee, 
Star-crowned with peace and liberty, 
We hail "the Venus of the Sea !" 

The heart and home of wealth and worth, 

The Eden-glory of the earth ; 

A sea of billowy verdure drest 

In rippling green, with lily crest. 

In all our woes across the sea, 

Bright Holland, Georgia cries to thee ! 

Scourged by a more than bitter tide — 
With the black billows howling wide ; 
Wrecked to her naked soil and sky — 
Reft of her all but memory ! 
Dear sister of like sorrows, we 
Turn in our wasting woes to thee ! 

Of old, thy virgin liberty 
Returned, a vestal, to the sea ! 
And ours ? Her bleeding feet impress 
Again the savage wilderness; 

66 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Blest if the desert's depth have wrought 
For Freedom as thy deluge fought ! 

Teach us to front the tempest's gloom 
With the long waves of light and bloom ; 
To plant, where flashed the flying foam, 
The constant altar-fires of home, 
And the shrill sea-blast's wave prolong 
In the shepherd's bell and reaper's song! 
To rear, by grace of grass and trees, 
Of milky herds and honey-bees, 
A second Holland from the seas. 



SLAVE OF THE DISMAL SCAMP 
A reply to Longfellow's "Slave in the Dismal Swamp' 

Under a rattling whirligig, 

Which a Yankee had taught to spin, 
A maiden sat, with bosom flat, 

And fingers long and thin ; 
And she was the slave of a dismal scamp, 

A man with a soul of tin. 

And hers was a chest like a coffin lid, 

And cheeks like the churchyard clay, 
And pulses that feel like the click of steel 

Picking a life away. 
Daily dying, and toiling still, 

For the dismal scamp in his dismal mill, 
Under the shadow of Bunker Hill — 

What does she sing or say? 

67 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



"Oh! why are my eyes so large and bright, 
And my ringers so long and thin?" 

"The better, my dear, for the spindles' flight, 
The faster, my love, to spin" — 

Spoke the maiden whose lungs were lint, 
And the man with the soul of — tin. 

"Would God that my skin were not so white, 

And my brain of a lesser size ! 
And would that my hair were kinked so tight 

That I couldn't shut my eyes ! 
And oh ! for an hour in the sunny fields, 

Where the snow-white cotton grows ; 
For the heaviest, hardest task that yields 

Free breath and sweet repose ! 
For a night that never knew a lamp, 

And a day that has a close !" 

Sung to the rattle and roar and tramp, 

In the heart of a merciless mill, 
Under the light of a dismal lamp, 

And the shadow of Bunker Hill. 

Poets of doodledom ! true and sweet, 

What sensitive plants ye are, 
Ready to faint at a cry from Crete, 

Or Borioboola-Gha ! 
Ye have rhymed the slave from his happy cave 

And bloodhound in the swamp ; 
Give us a stave for the maiden slave, 
With the black wolfs bite, and her living grave 

In the den of the dismal scamp. 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE OLD RIFLEMAN 

Now bring me out my buckskin suit, 
My pouch and powder, too ; ' 

We'll see if seventy-six can shoot 
As sixteen used to do ! 

Old Bess, we've kept our barrel bright, 
• Our trigger quick and true, 
As far, if not as fine a sight, 
As long ago we drew ! 

And pick me out a trusty flint ! 

A real white and blue! 
Perhaps 'twill win the other tint 

Before the hunt is through ! 

Give boys your brass percussion caps, 
Old "shut-pan" suits us well, 

There's something in the spark ; perhaps 
There's something in the smell ! 

We've seen the red-coat Briton bleed ; 

The red-skin Indian, too; 
We've never thought to draw a bead 

On Yankee-Doodle-Doo ! 

But Bessie! bless your dear old heart!— 
Those days are mostly done, 

And now we must revive the art 
Of shooting on the run. 

If Doodle must be meddling, why 

There's only this to do — 
Select the dark spot in his eye 

And let the daylight through ! 

69 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And if he doesn't like the way, 
That Bess presents the view, 

He'll maybe, change his mind, and stay 
Where the good Doodles do ! 



THE BILLS 



Oh ! the bills, Christmas bills ! 
What a world of misery 
Their memory instills ! 
As the merchants with their quills 
Stuck behind their "ears polite," 
So caressingly invite 
Your kind and prompt attention 
To their bills ! 
How they dun, dun, dun, 
As they kindly urge upon 
Your earliest attention their blessed little 
bills, 
Little bills! 

With a power of perforation, 

And a maw that never fills, 
What a sad dissimulation 

To call them little bills ! 
While all the tin that tinkles 
In your pocket only sprinkles 

A little liquidation on the 
Bills ! 

Oh ! the destiny that fills 
All our holidays with bills, 

7Q 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



When the very Christmas dinner 
Of the poor indebted sinner 
Might be cooked with the fuel of his bills ! 
Oh ! the bills, bills, bills, bills ! 
Nothing else but bills ! 

December 20, 1854 



THERE IS A TIME TO TRAVEL 
— Solemn'un 

It is a time for traveling! 

The age of moving on ! 
We run, we ride, we roll, we slide, 

We travel, everyone ! 
Some are tired of sitting still, 

Some are fond of motion, 
Some are ordered to the Springs, 

Others to the Ocean. 
Some to see the sun's eclipse, 

Some to see the moon's, 
Some a-sailing in the ships, 

And some in the balloons ! 
This is on a "breach of trust," 

That is his pursuer ! 
She is on her bridal bu'st 

And he is close up to her ! 
Some to find a starting place, 

Some a place to settle, 
Some to find the slippery face 

Of Popocatapetl ! 
It is time of traveling, 

And soon the time will come 
When all the world will go to see 

A man that stays at home. 

7i 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



MOVING ON 

I met a weary mover-man 

Half gone upon his journey, 
And thought that, minus caravan, 
He might have served, so lank and wan, 
He might have served, that mover-man, 
As sign to an attorney. 

The land was poor he left behind; 

The land was poor before him ; 
And wherefore move and wherefore not 
Were puzzle more than any plot 
To him, the daddy that begot, 

And her, the dame that bore him. 

Move on ! move on ! She's just ahead, 

Old Fortune with her finger! 
Happy the mover-man who gets 
To — where the sun goes when he sets, 
And comes from where he rises. 

February, i860 , 



YE MOVER 

White, the winding roadway shines, 
Scantily shadowed by ye pines, 
Where ye Mover moveth slow, 
Wearily and Westward, ho! 

Ark of his before the wind, 
With its jolly-boat behind ! 
Yaller-dog, that fares at one 
With his wife and rifle-gun ! 

72 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And ye row of little eyes 
Graded to an easy rise, 
With, by whiles, a level where 
Twins alleviate ye stair. 

Down the dale and up the hill 
So the Mover moveth still, 
He and all his household band 
Bound to seek the promised land. 

Scarce the girdled pines are dead 
On the hills he harvested ; 
Scarce the blessed sunlight blinks 
Through his cabin's wasted chinks 

Ere a vision, vague and dim, 
Hints a "better place" for him; 
Deeper soil and softer sun, 
Somewhere else, and farther on ! 

Where the woods supply his wants; 
Where 'tis "dangerous to plant !" 
Where ye cattle range at will, 
And ye roads run, all, down hill 
To market, meeting house and mill. 

Where, with scarce a tax, the State 
Grows, in all good grandeur, great, 
Where but bad folks fear the laws, 
And none but "Browns" are Governors. 

So ye Mover cocks his eye, 
Curves his spine and smites his thigh, 
While the hope his heart approves 
Comes to move him and he moves. 

73 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



So ye Mover moveth still 
Up ye dale and down ye hill, 
Leaving but this sad surmise, 
''Where he moves to when he dies?" 

Where ye righteous rest, we know, 
Also where ye wicked go ! 
But what happy place may be 
Ye "Mover's" is a mystery ! 

How were mortal mover blest 
In world without a West! 
Who, with half a hemisphere, 
Weeps a wilderness to clear ! 



Speed we then the Mover man 
In his moving while he can — 
Blest if not a hope as dim 
Moveth us as moveth him. 

February, i860 



NEPHEW TOM AT A CRISIS 

I know no use in life, 

Dear Tom, for a "cotton" wife! 

A bundle of burrs in lint ! 

Weak enough, on a hint, 

To break your heart or — the mint ! 

A wonder of paint and paste ! — 
A wasp in worse than waist! — 
Of a temper and special taste 

That never were nurtured far 
From the soul of a pickle- jar ! 

74 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Ready to faint and die, 

Tumbling over a-pale, 
If "Marigold" moves an eye, 

Or "Moss-Rose" tosses her tail ; 
A petulant four o'clock, 

Perishing at five ! 
Lord, keep us under a lock 
From wedding the like 

When we wive! 

Yield us a maiden sweet, 

Ye meadows of paradise — 
With your lilies about her feet, 

And your violets in her eyes! 
Whose brow is the mirrored calm 

Of her clear soul's starry fire ; 
Whose breath is the very balm 

Of the honey-bird's desire ! 

Not of the blooms that close 

Ere the summer is over-past — 
But a beautiful star that grows 

More beautiful till the last. 

And the pearlhood of girlhood lies 

In her purity and truth ; — 
Ah ! Tom, might we harvest the prize, 

We could glean all our summers with Ruth. 



SONG OF THE SINGLE GENTLEMEN 
To the Tribe 

Brothers ! let us all remember 

Where we used to go, 
In the long nights of November 

Long time ago ! 

75 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Boots of midnight's blackest brightness, 
Kids that were like snow, 

Pants that shamed the present tightness 
Long time ago ! 

All the world was wide before us 

Where we chose to go; 
All the damsels did adore us 

Long time ago ! 
Sweet at soirees to behold 'em 

All in a row; 
Oh, what precious things we told 'em 

Long time ago ! 

Where are all the shapes so slender, 

Lips that trembled so, 
Eyes so bright, and souls so tender, 

Long time ago? 
Some were to the churchyard carried 

Where the violets blow ; 
Some are fat ! and all were married 

Long time ago ! 

On the steep highway to Hades 

Down the hill we go ! 
Where immortal maiden ladies 

Lead their apes, you know ! 
Sadly there we wiil remember 

How we used to go, 
In the long nights of November 

Long time ago ! 

October 23, 1858 



76 



SONGS OF HOME 



SONGS OF HOME 



HOME 

Forest-girded, cedar-scented, 

Veiled like Vespers, sweet and dim ; 
Pure as burned the Temple's glory, 

Shadowed by the Seraphim; 
Islet from contending oceans, 

Coral-cinctured, crowned with palm, 
Where the wrestling world's commotions 

Melt through music into calm ; 
Throats that sing and wings that flutter 

Softly 'mid the balm and bloom ; 
Sweeter songs than lip can utter 

Sings my heart for thee, 
My home. 

Bless that dear old Anglo-Saxon, 

For the sounds he formed so well ; 
Little words, the nectar-waxen 

Harvest of a honey-cell, 
Sealing all a summer's sweetness 

In a single syllable ! 
For, of all his quaint word-building, 

The queen-cell of all the comb 
Is that grand old Saxon mouthful 

Dear old Saxon heartful, 
Home. 



December I, 1859 



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AN APRIL MORNING IN GEORGIA 

A deeper azure where the clouds are flying 

Along the upper sky, 
A softer shadow where the leaves, are lying 

Our forest pathway by, 
A sweeter murmur in the south winds sighing, 

Tell us the spring is nigh. 

The bluebird flits, and coos the ring-dove tender 

Amid the young green leaves ; 
Mansions of mist and silver, white and slender, 

The shy wood-spider weaves; 
Swingeth the swallow to his old home under 

The unforgotten eaves. 

Its bridal wreathes, with starry gems of yellow, 

The jasmine's stores unfold, 
Adown the tresses of the trembling willow 

Dropping its bells of gold ; 
Fit tracery to deck the perfumed pillow, 

Where Love's young dreams are told. 

A thousand forms, like frolic children hiding, 

Challenge the laughing showers, 
Watching the flight of pearly clouds and chiding 

The treasure-laden hours ; 
A thousand forms of untold beauty biding 

Amid the unborn flowers. 

A thousand forms, and not in nature only, 
The warm spring showers unfold, 

Another mission, pure and calm and holy, 
The voice of spring has told, 

Waking some joy in souls long sad and lonely, 
Some hope in hearts long cold. 

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Some light from sunlight may our sadness borrow, 
Some strength from bright young wings, 

Some hope from brightening seasons, when each 
morrow 
A lovelier verdure brings ; 

Some softened shadow of remembered sorrow 
From the calm depths of springs. 

Blend thy blest visions with the sleep that cumbers 

The dull, cold earth so long; 
Bring bloom and fragrance to the flowret's slumbers, 

And bid our hearts be strong; 
Breathe thine own music through our spirit's 
numbers, 

Season of light and song. 

January 20, 1855 



A NOSEGAY 

To a Lady at a Distance 

I send our youngest rosebud ; and 
'Twill wither ere it kiss thy hand. 

Also, from our cedar tree, 
A plume to outlive chivalry ! 

So love has knit in one small nest, 
The toughest and the tenderest ! 



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INTO THE SHADOWS 

(We have lived so far beyond the flight of summer 
friends, and have had so frequently to say "farewell" to 
others of a finer description, that the memory of many of 
them has finally arranged itself to the rhythm of chariot 
wheels. 

To some of these the following lines may prove signifi- 
cant.) 

Into the evening shadows, 

Ever we see them pass, 
Steeds with their stately steppings, 

Wheels as of rippling glass ; 

Over the sand and pebbles — 

Over the stones and clay, 
Fitfully lit and darkened, 

Vanishing with the day. 

They to the sempiternal 

Sunshine without a pain; 
We, as though the eternal 

Shadows had closed again; 

For their eyes were the fondest, clearest, 
That ever our souls drew near, 

And their voices the sweetest, dearest, 
That ever our souls shall hear. 

Dark is the house, my brother, 

Where the shadow of parting falls, 

And only the eyes of our memories 
Follow us round the walls. 

Dark is our lot, my brother — 
Sad as this planet bears — 

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Should our lip deny to another 
The light it hath learned at theirs, 

If, after the day is over, 

And the shadow of evening steals, 
No eye through its mists shall follow 

The flight of our chariot wheels. 

Torch Hill, 

October 29, 1868 



'DO THEY MISS ME AT HOME?" 

"The world is not all so dark 
But a smile can make it sweet." 
— Tennyson. 

A question that betrays 
The answer ere it come, 

For that "I miss" conveys 
That I am missed at home. 

For so the world is full 
Of call that answers call, 

Along the wires that pull 
Both ways or not at all. 



A SONG FOR THE ASKING 

To Rosalie Nelson Ticknor 

A song! What songs have died 

Upon the earth, 
Lyrics of Love and Pride — 

Of Tears and Mirth? 

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Fading as hearts forget, 

As shadows flee ! 
So vain the voice of song, 

And yet 

I sing to thee! 

A song! The ocean shell 
Should murmur long 

Might thy soft touch impel 
Its soul to song! 

A song? Then near my heart 
Thy cheek must be, 

For, like the shell, it sings — 
Sweet Heart — 
To Thee, of Thee ! 
1855 



OUR BOBBY— ASLEEP 
Robert Carter 

The cows have come home from the cotton-field 
pasture, 

The colts are at rest, and the calves are all dumb, 
Aunt Rosey has given the apple he asked for, 

And Bobby's asleep as sound as a drum ! 

From the earliest neigh of Dan Phoebus his courser, 
Till the last weary team from its yoke was un- 
loosed 

He's run with the wagon and ridden the horses, 
And now he has gone with the chickens to roost! 

And sweet be the dreams of his manly young spirit, 
When beautiful sleep on his eyelids shall rest, 

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Till the hands that have wrought for the bliss they 
inherit 
Shall be folded for aye, on an innocent breast ! 

No poet may scribble his deeds into story! 

No column arise with the sound of his name, 
But the works of his hands shall be better than glory 

And the worth of his heart shall be brighter than 
fame. 

1858 



C GELERT" 



'Twas not for special beauty, 
Though beautiful was he, 

Nor yet in reverent honor 
Of a stainless pedigree, 

That reached across the ocean, 
Through twice a century. 

But for love that ever listened 
To affection's lightest breath, 

For a faithfulness that glistened 
In the very haze of death, 

That our cedars droop their shadows, 
And our jasmines twine a wreath. 

Under the great Deodar 
There lies a little mound — 

As beneath some proud pagoda 
A prince might slumber sound, 

In the verdure and the odor 
Of consecrated ground — 
And a hand hath written "Gelert" 
In honor of a hound. 

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"IN MAMRE" 

Do you ever think when your Eden tree 

Is flourishing wide and green, 
With friendships thicker than fruits of gold, 

And love with its flowers between — 
How many beautiful souls may be 

That your soul hath never seen? 
And how much "loving" your heart could hold 
In apples of silver, and blossoms of gold, 

Were your heart an evergreen? 

In a world so wide there are nooks to hide, 

And shadows to veil the sweet; 
And there are the wise with unseeing eyes, 

And the swift with unheeding feet. 
Happier we, were our Eden tree 

A tent in the desert's heat, 
Who hold that the very angel who spoke 
To Abraham, under the Mamre oak, 

May be the next we meet ! 

'Tis a pleasant thought when the eventide, 

In glory, looks down on our prayers, 
That we have not mocked in the day of our pride 
The meanest pilgrim whose dust may hide 

An "angel unawares" ! 
And a beautiful hope, as the night unrolls 

Her raiment of rest serene, 
That we are nearer the beautiful souls 

That our souls have never seen. 



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THE PEDDLER MAN AT TORCH HILL 

Poets and peddlers ! From the early day 
Till now the night of "letters" closes blind, 

Peddlers and poets on the king's highway 

Have met with salutations quaint though kind. 

Who walks with Wordsworth, or with Shakespeare's 
wings, 

Winnows the gold from this world's dusty cares, 
May glean a grace from life's most common things, 

And entertain an angel unawares. 

In thoughts like these my inner man rejoiced, 
As nightfall dropped a peddler at the gate, 

A huge "bed-tick" upon his shoulder hoist, 
A thousand pounds — in size, if not in weight. 

The house-dog silenced, from the gate I heard 
The olden plaint of all the world's highways : 

"Footsore and hungry !" though, I wis, no word 
Of retrospective hint at "better days" ! 

"A plague on peddlers !" is the form of wish 

With which one's peddler welcome should begin ; 

Which, as a poet, I condensed to "Pish !" 
And bade the biped dromedary in. 

And in he came ; at every step a bow • 

That offered me the mattress on his back, 

As one by duty doubly bent — to show 
His weight of obligation and of pack. 

Much talk, but none that I might understand ; 
Of plaintive demonstration, also, much ! 

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I only gathered that his Faderland 
Was farther off — Jerusalem or Dutch ! 

Some arrant knight of commerce, who hath strayed 
To these poor parts, by cheating fancy led, 

To drive a brief but profitable trade 

In lies and linen tapes, thieving and thread ; 

In drill-eyed sharps, no sharper than himself, 
Tho' dull his eye and all adust his skin; 

To plunder pity of her slender pelf, 

And thrive in chief when chiefly "taken in." 

His supper done, I him to bed allowed ; 

But soon thereafter, passing unawares, 
I saw (and beg your pardon if I bowed 

And said "Amen") the peddler at his prayers! 

I do not deem all peddlers are devout ; 

I do not argue that they all are Dutch ; 
I only urge the pressure of the doubt 

To hold in reasonable honor such. 

Torch Hill, 
November 16, 1859 



GROUP OF DUCKLINGS 

Ducklings, six of the downiest 

That a duck could hatch if she did her best, 

Or a painter paint at his creamiest. 

Of the richest and roliest-poliest ; 

First choice Frank's ! and the present quest 

Of Frank's forefinger "the prettiest !" 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Round and round, as a hawk that eyes 
Ducklings, six of the dumpling size ; 
Each so suitable — still she flies. 

Ducklings, six, and one for dinner ; 
But which ? so hovers the dainty sinner, 
Nor fills the hollow that acheth in her. 

''This is the prettiest — brownie-white ! 
Except this yellow one on the right — 
I mean the left — with a fly in sight. 

''The one that scampers ! The one that's still ! 
The one afloat, with dripping bill. 
Prettiest, washed and had his fill ! 
But hungry top-knot's prettier still ! 



"This one ! after the bug. The other, 
Watching at once the bug and his brother ! 
Which is the prettiest? ask their mother!" 

Puzzled Frank ! I know a nest, 
And a mother too of the wisest, best, 
Who could not tell, and who would not test, 
For the wide world at its happiest, 
Which of her darlings she loves the best. 

1869 



THE GRAY GOING HOME 

To the old War Horse 

Up the hill, mine honored Gray! 
We are going home — "to stay 1" 

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Around the hill, below the heights, 
Cling the glooms and gleam the lights. 

Glamour of the evil eyes ! 
Spume of hate that never dies ! 

Let the cauldron boil below ! 
Wish the world a fairer foe ! 

Balsam to our battle-scars 
Climbing nearer to the stars. 

Homeward with the rapture that 
Beached the ark on Ararat. 

All the ways of war and weather 
We have worn the harness leather. 

Days with never cymbal-beat, 
Save the music of thy feet. 

Nights with never star or guide, 
Save the glimmer of thy hide. 

Stained with all the tints of toil 
And "variations of the soil," 

Deeper tinct with every stain 

The tireless wine-press wrings from pain, 

Not the frosted hills display 
Richer dapple, oh, my Gray! 

Not the vales at vintage hold 
Riper deeps of gloom and gold. 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Up the hill, oh, grace and speed, 
And power unplummeted of need ! 

These have cheered the night agone, 
These are musical at dawn. 

Ringing to the bright'ning dome, 
Climbing upwards, onwards, home! 

Far above the cauldron's spume, 

With starry cross and stainless plume, 

We have shared the "corn" and heather, 
We are going home together. 

On thy crest this loving sign, 

Be my Lord's white mark on mine ! 



"WHIP-POOR-WILL" 

Whip Poor Will ! Was there ever heard 

Such a blood-thirsty, slanderous, scandalous 

bird! 
Under the window so slyly to creep, 
And whistle "come whip him" while Will's 

asleep. 
It's a bird of darkness, and not of day, 
That whistles a hint that he dare not say. 

Whip Poor Will ! Why, what has he done ? 
Has he found your eggs, ma'am, and broken 

one? 
Has he torn his jacket, or fought at play, 
Or missed his lesson, or run away, 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Or broken a tumbler, or scratched the chairs, 
Or choked at table, or spoken at prayers ? 

No, Willie's a boy that's nice and neat, 
And Willie's a boy that's bright and sweet ; 
He's quiet at home and he's quick at school, 
And he never breaks, if he knows, the rule ; 
And I really think it were wondrous silly 
For nothing at all to whip poor Willie ! 

But, Whip-poor-will, if you've really seen 
Another Willie that's bad and mean, 
And you think you ought, and think 'twill "pay, 
To whip poor Willie, why whip away. 
And so good-by to your birdship till 
There's more occasion to whip our Will ! 
1869 



"MOTHER'S WORK" 

Darning stockings 
For restless feet, 
Scrubbing faces 
To lily-sweet ! 
Teaching Bible 

And catechism, 
Soothing bruises 
And healing schism. 

Smooth and smoother, 

Linger nor jerk; 
That's our Mother — 
The woman's work ! 

Raising roses, 
Burying smarts, 

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Hiving sunshine 

Under our hearts! 
Bravest spirit 

Beneath the dome ! 
Dastards falter 

When she says "Come !" 

Smooth and smoother, 

"Nor haste nor rest!" 
Beautiful Mother, 
Whom God hath blest. 

Tender, most tender! 

Child, take heed ! 
Rare her splendor 

Of thought and deed. 
Mild as moonlight 

In softest quiver, 

To shine with the stars 

Forever and ever ! 

Smooth and smoother — 
When life hath flown — 
The wings of "Mother" 
Still woo our own. 



IDYL 

To Maria Nelson Ticknor 



A vision which I had of late, 
By the orchard's lattice gate, 
Let this simple song relate ! 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Vision of a little girl, 

With a cheek of peach and pearl, 

And the promise of a curl ! 

Daintily in white arrayed, 
Borne by Ethiopian maid, 
Blending well with light and shade. 

Dimpled hand on dusky neck, 
Ebony with silver fleck, 
'Twixt a turban and a check ! 

By the cedar's scented gloom, 

By the violet's perfume, 

By the jasmine's golden bloom, 

By the graceful hawthorn tree, 
By the stately hickory, 
Pausing for a kiss from me ! 

Melting where the sunlight shines, 
On the blossomed nectarines, 
Melting down the orchard lines. 

II 

Melts, but bids before me rise 
A wiser pair of wider eyes, 
In a wide world of surprise, 

And a world of rapture swells 
In her accent as she tells 
All the legends of our dells. 

Where the wild bee builds her cells, 
Where the humming-birdie dwells, 
Where the squirrel drops the shells ! 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Voice, by soul of music stirred, 
Eloquent in tone and word, 
Mocks the very mocking-bird. 

And she knows the way of fruit, 
All the tricks of bud and shoot, 
All the secrets of the root. 

Much that wiser folk call weeds 
Her wide horticulture heeds ; 
Boundless her delight in seeds. 

Leave her to her slender hoe, 
Let the seasons come and go, 
Let the flowers and maiden grow. 

Ill 

Another Presence ! bright, yet pure, 
With mien more modest than demure. 
Not our little maiden, sure ? 

Yes ! by dimpled cheek and chin, 
Violet eyes, and velvet skin, 
Tis our "Summer-child" again ! 

'Mid the roses she hath wrought — 

'Mid the lilies till she caught 

Health and grace in form and thought. 

Greet her, all ye clustered blooms ! 
Apples, peaches, pears, and plums, 
Greet your sweetest as she comes ! 

By the cedar's scented breath, 

By the violets underneath, 

By the jasmine's golden wreath. 

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Crown her with your fragrant hands, 
All bright things from all bright lands, 
Crown your brightest, where she stands, 

By the graceful hawthorn tree, 
By the stately hickory, 
Pausing for a kiss from me. 

Torch Hill, 
April 15, 1858 



TWILIGHT ON TORCH HILL 

It is eve at our eyrie ; the river 
Falls dim in its tremulous gaze ; 

There's a mantle of mist and a quiver 
Of stars through the violet haze. 

Soft twilight ! the far silent city 
Sleeps, veiled in the valley beneath, 

Eclipsed by the flash of this pretty 

Bright "ruby-throat" here on this wreath. 

Shall I try, ere the daylight is over, 
So high from its dust and its din, 

How much of the world I can cover 
With the leaf of a jessamine? 

All the life and the light of the city 
Shall I daintily hide from my sight, 

With its sorrow that weeps, and the pity 
That walks with the angels to-night ? 

Sweet mercies that shadow me ! Never ! 

Lest the soul in my body should die, 
Ere the sparkle fades out of the river, 

Or the light from the violet sky. 
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AMONG THE BIRDS 

We built a nest among the birds 

Now many Mays ago; 
And we have heard a. many a word 

They sang, by building so. 

And times when dew is on the day, 

And starlight on the trees, 
We meet and warn the mists away 

With little lays like these: 

A birdie tells of dimpled dells 
That blushed in far-ofT springs ; 

And many an April blooms and thrills 
With rapture while she sings. 

A birdie coos of light and shade 
The summers brought our nest, 

Of Violets born, and Lilies laid 
Where Lilies love to rest. 

A birdie carols : Day's decline 
Restores the dawn's caress ; 

And Autumn pours a richer wine 
Than April's tenderness. 

A birdie says : The bitter days 

May blow till they expire ; 
The winds but raise our censer blaze 

And waft its incense higher ! 

The birdies sing: The bright shells bring 

The soul-song of the sea ; 
The close cheek and the clasping hand 

Make Life's whole melody. 

Torch Hill, May, 1870 

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THE ECHO STORY 

This is a rhyme that our poet writ, 

Sitting at peace one day, 
With his warring done, and his rifle-gun 

Bracketed away. 

A little lad in the curly grace 

Of summers that numbered three, 

With a wrathful trace on his rosy face, 
Stood at his mother's knee. 

"Mother, get me a rifle-gun, 

With a bayonet keen and bright ; 

There's a fellow that hides in the hills in front, 
And him I am bound to fight ! 

"A fellow that hoots like a hooting owl, 
And mocks like a mocking-bird; 

A rascal that calls me the meanest names 
That ever a fellow heard. 

"Now, mother, get me a rifle-gun, 
And a jacket of blue or gray, 

And I think you'll hear of the prettiest fight, 
Or the funniest run-away !" 

And the mother, parting the sunny curls, 

Smiled in the earnest eyes : 
"I know the lad ; he of Johnny's age, 

And just about Johnny's size. 

"He'll never run from your rifle-gun; 

We'll try him another way. 
Speak lovingly to that lad, my son, 

And hear what he has to say." 

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Soon, in the porch that faced the hills, 
They stood in the waning light, 

A voice replied to the voice that cried, 
''Johnny, my dear, good-night!" 

And Johnny's smile, as he turned away, 
Was audible, sweet and clear; 

And it was a rather good thing to say, 
And a very good thing to hear. 

And I hope the world as it grows in grace 
Will learn how a war is won ; 

That Love is still the invincible — 
And bracket its rifle-gun. 

Torch Hill, 
October 29, 1868 



THE HILLS 



Below the granite chain 
Appalachian, 
Above the sandy plain, 
Which under-dips the main, 
There lies a belt of hills, 
Which the Middle Georgian tills. 

The hills ! and how came they ? 
The yellow, red, and gray ? 
The gravel, sand, and clay? 
The big ones, why so tall? 
The little ones so small? 
How came they here at all? 

Is the mystery that fills 

The history of the hills, 

With much perplexity 

For my geology. 

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Whether deposited 
In the deep ocean's bed, 
As one might softly spread 
An ancient feather-bed 
Over' an earthquake's head. 
Till waking with a shout, 
The giant laid about, 
And made a hill "crop out" 

For every deadly blow 

Delivered down below. 

Or whether 'twas the gift 

(A most prodigious lift!) 

Of the era known as "drift," 

When the ice-raft stole away 

The gravel, sand, and clay 

From many an Arctic bay, 

And "bowlder," by the way, 

Bore southward day by day 

Till on the floor it lay — 

On the grooved and furrowed floor 

Of the slow-receding sea — 

And, cracking with a roar, 

Poured mud from every pore, 

To make one hillock more, 
Which the slow-receding sea, 

With its softly-lapping hands 

Amid the moistened sands, 
Like a man that undertakes 
To mould before he bakes, 
Or a child that patti-cakes — 

Which the slow receding sea, 

With its softly-dimpled hands, 

With its foam-white ruffled hands, 

With its diamonded hands, 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Bequeathed as "Cotton-lands" 
To all the world — to me, 
And my Geology 
A much perplexi T. 



II 



"The hills, and how came they?" 
We pondered yesterday ; 
As one who rhymes his way 

Through the mystery that fills 

The history of hills — 

The everlasting hills — 
With an everlasting doubt 
As to how they came about. 

To a metre not more slow, 
To a measure that must flow 
To the echo of a woe, 
We rhyme again to show 
The hills, and where they go. 
Their coming none may know, 
Nor question where they go ! 

Oh, brothers ! shall the land 
Which our loving Father planned 
For the honest heart and hand — 
The hills our Father planned, 
And with softest seasons spanned, 
Which He gathered from the sea, 
And gave to you and me — 
Flear the echo of the woe, 
"The hills ! and here they go 
To the ocean, whence they sprung, 
Bewept, and not unsung !" 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



My brothers, answer No! 
The hills ! we love the hills, 
Their heads are nearest Heaven, 
Their sides to morn and even ! 
There is a joy that fills 
Their anthem to the day ; 
There is a peace that fills 
The requiem of hills 
To the light that dies away. 
Tis more than song or wine 
To see their summits shine, 
Through twilight's purple wine, 
Like islands of the blest, 
In the ocean of their rest ; 
When the broad palm of the sun, 
With his signet-star thereon, 
Is raised in benison, 

"Hold fast the hills below ! 
Your hills and homes, and so 
Until the dark be light, 
God bless you, and good-night !" 

Torch Hill, 
February 16, i860 



PLANT FRUIT AND FLOWERS 

Plant flowers ! yea, flowers ! What care or cost 

Shall the generous hand deny, 
These sinless symbols of all we've lost, 

And all we seek on high ! 
Flowers to carry the breath of spring 

To windows and walks and eaves ; 
Flowers ! what sorrow in heart or wing 

But shelters among their leaves ! 

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Plant fruit ; yea, fruit ! in no niggard hole 

To rival the slug-worm's toil ; 
But wide as the Patriot's unbought soul, 

And deep in the cream of soil ! 
Fruit, to temper the Winter's ruth, 

To soften the Summer's rage; 
Fruit ! to brighten the morn of Youth, 

And mellow the eve of Age. 

Plant fruit and flowers ; yea, flowers and fruit ! 

The boughs may be bare and cold, 
But a subtle alchemyst at the root 

Is turning thy toil to gold, 
Who follows thy foot-prints silently, 

Nor sleeps when thy labors close, 
Until the wilderness "glad for thee," 

Is "blossoming like the rose !" 
February 8, 1858 



THE FARMER MAN 

To William N. Nelson 

Fytte I 

The farmer man ! I see him sit 
In his low porch, to muse a bit 
The while I throw him in a— fytte. 

What time the jasmines scent the air, 
And drop their blossoms in his hair ; 

What time the evening echo tells 

Of trampling herds and tinkling bells ; 

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And all the echoes of the Ark 
Salute the planter-patriarch ! 

So sitting with his collar spread, 
And heels yleveled with his head ; 

A monarch in his mere content, 
A king by general consent. 

Fytte II 

And framed between his heels he sees 
A picture, which perchance may please : 

The distant city, and more nigh 
The river's twinkle, like an eye 

Obscured at intervals by motes, 
Which quite extract its beam with boats. 

The purple hills where, swift or slow, 
The cloudland shadows come and go ; 

While, dun as dormice, in their train 
The little rail cars pant in vain, 

With all the clatter that portends 
The most prodigious dividends ! 

For oh ! the wilderness that lies 
Between the worlds of sound and size ! 

And oh ! the leagues that sunder yet 
The realms of dividend and debt ! 

And then the vassal valleys bring 
Their tribute to the railway king ; 

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The which he pockets with a roar 
Expressive of a wish for "more !" 

Then with a yell through yon deep cut 
He dives, and — peace to Lilliput ! 

The cottages with curling smoke, 
Significant of "colored folk," 

The first without a foe or care, 

To breathe Millennium's morning air. 

And in their midst a lonely mound 
Most eloquent, without a sound, 

Tells how the parting years have sped 
With the black savage and the red. 

The yellow cornfields and the brown, 
Where Southern snows have melted down, 

And borne its all-abundant lint 

To drown the mills and drain the mint. 

The woods whose autumn glories cheer 
The solemn sunset of the year, 

With oval openings, which enring 
Such views as we are picturing, 

And hint how much the traveler sees 
Who stays at home and studies trees, 

And thanks the telescope, tho' dim, 
That keeps its smallest eye on him, 

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And nearer home all shape and sheen 
Of Nature's endless evergreen, 

Through which a winding walk doth glide 
To orchards, jubilant and wide, 

Restrained within an emerald edge, 
Of fair, tho' somewhat thorny hedge, 

An archway entrance, and o'erhead 
This little legend to be read : 

"Partake of all the fruit, nor grieve 
For Eden's morn or Eden's Eve !" 

Fytte III 

But what of him, the farmer man, 
His way of life and being's plan? 

Why, simply (be it so with many !) 
That "Now's as good a time as any." 

Yet he can tell you of a morn 

Ere yonder valley sang with corn, 

Or yonder hill-top bared its brow, 
Submissive to the sun and plow. 

And long before yon proud white spires 
Crushed out the low red council fires. 

With not a "turn out" toe to press 
The dim walks of the wilderness. 

Of many a season come and flown, 
With strokes of fortune and his own ; 

106 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Till waves of varied memory 
Shall leave him stranded as we see ; 

With time's old foam-marks in the lines, 
Now starry with the jessamines. 

Fytte IV 

His politics I might rehearse 
In limits lesser than my verse. 

Should any fool my State invade, 
Then mention me as strict "State aid," 

Till then I mind my own affairs, 

And trust my friends to manage theirs. 

His science? such as thou may'st hit 
By plowing deep in search of it. 

His wit? the shortest link that girds 
A Saxon thought to Saxon words. 

His credit? shall the world forget 
The Atlas who upheld her debt? 

His creed ? in reverence of the "past" 
Old faith and feeling holds he fast. 

And so my muse's stenograph 
Anticipates his epitaph — 

"He read the papers, loved his wife, 
And hated humbug all his life." 

And, happily, to round my "pome," 
"Loved God, his neighbor, and his home. 5 

December, 1858 

107 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



BUMBLEBY 

The Union and the negro questions. 

I 

This is the legend of what befell 
Farmer Bumbleby — down a well ! 

II 

Farmer Bumbleby ! one of those — 
Broad of shoulders and square of toes — 

That never lose, of their lives, a day 
Nor know of a debt that they cannot pay. 

With a hundred arms and an eye that scanned 
Every finger of every hand. 

Briareus — Argus ! born to keep 

A bank account with his bees and sheep. 

One of that natural order, which 
Ripens at forty and ripens — "rich!" 

Richly ! Rosily ! ripened he 
That busiest, burliest Bumbleby. 

Ill 

Farmer Bumbleby digged a w — ait ! 
Mutton ! we won't anticipate. 

Farmer Bumbleby owned a Ram, 
Black as Egypt ! a son of "Ham" ; 

108 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Sire (such was his lord's delight), 
To flocks with never a fleck of — white, 

Name of Legion ! and now it fell 

That Farmer Bumbleby digged his well ! 

IV 

Forty feet from the surface, sheer 
To gravel, tokening water near. 

(A picket paling that rambled nigh 
Veiled the pit from a careless eye, 

Not too high for the running leap 

Of an average fool of a frightened sheep!) 



V 



Something wrong with the well inside ! 
"Curse the curb !" — but it didn't slide. 

"Master's hand is the oil," said he ; 
Down he went like a — Bumblebee, 

Down it went with a rumble ; when — 
What did enter those black-sheep then ? 

VI 

Ham, and the whole of his colored kin, 
Seized at once by the sire of sin ! 

First a frolic and then a flight ; 
Diabolical — headlong — right 

109 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



For the little picket established nigh 
The quarters of Farmer Bumbleby! 

VII 

Front the lightning! and if you will, 
Hurl Niagara up the hill ! 

Cross the hurricane's path ! but keep 
Your chivalry clear of a charge of sheep. 

VIII 

Here they come with a stamp and stare ! 
Over the fence with a foot to spare ! 

Woolly cataract! first the sire, 
Then the progeny, high and higher! 

Mutton-Bedlam! and every sheep 
Mad for the highest and lowest leap ! 

Over the wall with a demivolt, 
Down the well like a catapult ! 

Endless ? nay ! for the hole is full 
Up to the windlass, a well of Wool ! 

IX 

'Twas August ! the first went down at day ! 
The last came up when the skies were gray ! 

'Twas night when Bumbleby reached the air, 
A picture ! Paint him ? I might despair, 

no 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



But Black, the color is close and cheap, 
And there's his likeness upon a sheep ! 

Deftly done ! but a bolder sleight 

That Artist's that ever un-paints him white ! 

X 

Enough ! may never your wit expel 
Such a sick man from such a well ! 

We laid him out on the grass to cool 

And he fainted — whispering "D — n all wool !" 

He lived, but dwindled, that stricken man 
From fat and rosy to gaunt and wan ! 

XI 

A double horror oppressed his soul — 
A mutton mountain in that black hole ! 



No rest his days and his nights no sleep, 
Ever his morning — and — night-mare, Sheep ! 

All wool became, and we banished it, 
Another name for "another fit!" 

XII 

At last we saw in his waning eye 
That the man must change or the man must 
die; 

We called the Doctor ; he came in cloth, 
And ordered, mortally, "Mutton-broth !" 

in 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



XIII 

Have you an uncle, whose name is Sam ? 
Has your uncle a pet black Ram ? 

Kind it were of his kin to tell 
Your uncle of Bumbleby and his well. 
1858 



FREE TRADE FOR THE FARMER-MAN 

A farmer-man (elect of those) 
Who pays his way and as he goes 
Evolves the best from what he knows ; 

Who, with the soil, the sun, the rain, 
Blends sweat of brow and thought of brain, 
To bring the harvest round again; 

Who seeks not melons on his trees, 
Nor looks for butter to his bees, 
Nor asks the help of Hercules ; 

Mayhap, beside his firelight, 

May read the rhyme that here I write, 

And find the reason fit him quite. 

A farmer, let his eye command 

The course of trade from hand to hand 

That bore his last crop from the land ; 

Across the far off, rolling seas 
To rattling mills that rival these 
In roar and much machineries ; 

112 .. ,. : 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Till there, by growing strong and vast — 
And thence, by spreading far and fast, 
Its web enwrap'd the world at last. 

As though the little* "pod" might hold 

A nation's welfare manifold, 

A kingdom's coffered peace and gold ; 

And stretching out from zone to zone, 
And blent with empires blood and bone, 
Outweigh the scepter, crown and throne! 

Well sped ! a blessing on its flight, 

If so beneath its pinions white 

It bears the message "Peace and Light !" 

Well sped ! a blessing on its way ! 

'Twas work for work, 'twas worth for pay, 

So prosper I, and prosper they ! 

But let the farmer, thoughtful eyed, 
Survey the still returning tide, 
For his on the water's wide ! 

And like the fisherman that got 
A giant in a small quart pot, 
Behold the giant that is — not ! 

From yonder where the spindle hums 
Mid gliding bands and whirling drums, 
One giant dwindles as he comes. 

The farmer's pay ! perplexed with cost, 
And taxed from pillow unto post, 
Of all the profits dwindles most. 

113 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



How knows he that the plow he sent 
Throat deep in its brown element 
Was "taxed" at all, or what per cent. ? 

His iron taxed to rottenness — 

His liquors till their "brands" express 

A "poison" and a "nastiness !" 

Rope, bagging, sugar, coffee, tea, 
Hat, coat, shirt, boots and breeches, he 
Pays tax on tax unendingly ! 

Nor dreams he of a tax allowed 
To knit its greed within his shroud, 
Though naked famine o'er it bowed, 

That someone, in a far off land, 
Might forge at ease the iron band 
Which bows his back and binds his hand ! 

He only knows his crop is spent, 
Nor "reckons" if the money went 
To old Joe Brown or Government ! 

If at the time his crop he sold 
One-third the price in yellow gold 
And been purloined it would have told 

Upon his pocket just the same ; 
For tariff, though it hides its shame 
Is stealing by another name. 

To Him, I'd ban his household bliss, 
His children's love, and his wife's kiss, 
Until he vows to think of this ! 

114 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And this thing brings an arm of aid 

Against the tariffs that invade 

His peace, his purse, his toil, his trade. 



Torch Hill, 
Seed Time, i860 



THE HORRORS OF HORTICULTURE 

I've got me a nice little garden, 
With a neat little palin' around, 

And I growl, without axin' your pardon, 
For I grumble on very good ground ! 

Ne'er a crack for the eye of a cricket, 
Your critical eye, sir, can view, 

Yet the chickens pitch over the picket, 
And the little Bob rabbits pop through ! 

And oft when the sweat of your labor 
Is sweetened with visions of fruits, 

In comes the poor shoat of your neighbor, 
And up comes the crop by the "roots." 

In spite of your P's and your Q's too 

You're T'sd with the trouble you've lost, 

P' — eas killed by the sticking they're used to, 
And Q-cumbers curled by the frost. 

Bad luck to your Irish potatoes ! 

Not an eye whence a tear ye might draw, 
Not a Murphy to whisper come "ate us," 

Responds from the depths of the straw. 

Your melons are true melon-colics, 
Not rosy and cosy and flush, 

"5 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Green gourds in the place of your "waters/ 
And pumpkins in place of your "mush." 

I've got me a nice little garden, 

A neat little palin' around, 
I growl, and I don't ax your pardon, 

For grumbling upon my own ground. 

Torch Hill, 
May, i860 



POETA IN RURE 

Now, doth it give the corn a start, 
Or cause the cotton grow ? 

They mock the minstrel's idle art, 
My neighbors of the hoe; 

With rumble of the tumble cart, 
And lyric of "Gee-Whoa !" 

Their legends are of doughty teams, 

Of oxen and of sheep ; 
I hear them driving in their dreams 

And counting in their sleep. 

And yet their wit is rich in speech, 

The wisest, uninspired ; 
Their limbs unto the fiddle screech 

Right rhythmically wired. 

Within these fields of care and strife 
A man may come, no doubt, 

To be a poet, all his life, 
And never find it out. 

To dwell among his woolly flocks, 
His herds of hoof and horn, 

116 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Less happy than the licensed "ox 
That treadeth out the corn I" 

To hold the sky in all its scope 

As one great weather-sign, 
To toil athwart the vineyard's slope 

And never taste the wine ! 

The day must have its dinner-gong, 

The nation must be fed, 
Yet one will weary of a song 

With one sole burden, bread. 

And one must count his labor "naught," 

His harvest quite in vain, 
Who reared no blossom when he wrought 

With summer on the plain, 
No garland of a golden thought 

To glorify his grain. 



r KING KORN" 



Agricultural Editor of the Register: I hope the follow- 
ing hint to the planters may reach them through your de- 
partment of the Register, and incline their hearts towards 
King Korn. 

The old king sat in his barn, beneath 

An old owl, nodding near, 
On a throne of shucks, with a royal wreath 

Of cob-web around his ear; 
And he hummed this note in his husky throat, 

Which I'm recording here. 

Ho ! many and great are the cares and weight 
Which a king is bound to bear — 

117 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



I'm sick of state — I'll abdicate — 

King Kotton can take the chair ! 

Out in the cold, another old 
Weevil-bedeviled Lear ! 

Many a year have I ruled, and ne'er 

Was there lack of meal or meat — 
But the world is bare of "something to wear," 

And sick of something to eat ! 
Along the Ganges, the Gaudalete, 

Nile, Amazon, everywhere — 
The world's replete with something to eat, 

And crazy for something to wear ! 
I'm weary of state — I'll abdicate — 

King Kotton can take the chair ! 

The lad I nursed, 'till his buttons burst, 

And he left me in his pride 
Of ruffles, worst, that ever nursed • 

Notions of — parricide ! 
I fed him last, and I fed him first, 

The rogue ! — or he'd ha' died ! 

Well ! Let him govern ! The people's will 

Is wise — in its way — indeed ! 
The youth is wild, but I hope the child 

Will manage to make his seed ! 
Many a fool is born to rule 

A realm that he couldn't — feed. 
'Twere wiser to stint on Cotton lint 

Than starve upon Cotton seed! 



The old king grinned till his wisdom teeth 
Were visible at each ear, 

118 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And he smiled with a smile that shook the 
wreath 

Of cob-webs around his ear! 
In short, so loud that I woke and vowed 

To tell you about it here ! 

March, 1869 



LAND AND LABOR 

There's a cry in our South that I can't understand, 
Of the dearness of Labor, the cheapness of Land ; 
I thought if the world had a vision of bliss 
Since Eve (and Tom Moore!) — "It was this — it 
was this :" 

Cheap Labor! Dear Land! Shall the dial go back 
A cycle or so for the blessing we lack? 
Shall the darkest of ages, their annals expand 
With the cheapest of Toil and the dearest of Land ? 

Then your blood was so cheap that your Seignor's 

repose 
Could afford it in foot-baths, and bless his old toes ! 
Let grumble who list, there's a rise in your kind, 
Since your shackles went up, and your Seignor 

declined. 

Your labor too high ! who, ever, was known 
To utter that cry for a work of his own ? 
Too much for a darkey ! How much for the hint ? 
He might be a "gold mine" — might I be the mint ? 

There's a law on the subject that holds like a vice — 
Of all a man hath his labor is price ; 

119 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And there's only one ''wage" you can fasten on man, 
To have what he makes, and to make what he can. 

To steal with New England, to beg with old Cork, 

Let them fix the price of your land and your work ; 

But for bread, while you live, and for peace when 
you die, 

Keep your Land cheap as dirt, and your Labor sky- 
high ! 



YE RHYME OF YE RUSTYC 

The doom of those who indulge too freely in carnivorous 
enjoyments, to the neglect of die more natural and healthful 
fruits, vegetables and farinaceous grains, is quaintly set 
forth in the following stanzas, from our friend the Doctor. 
Tom Hood could scarcely have told the tale better. Let 
all lovers of hog (who generally consider fruit "unhealthy") 
read and tremble. — Southern Cultivator. 

I met a fellow-countryman, 

('Twas only yester-e'en) 
By day or night, the sorriest sight 

That I have ever seen ! 
As ribbed as is the ribbed sea-sand, 

As "long and lank and lean." 

His limbs were small, his knees were large, 

His bony ankles, too ; — 
The teeth I saw in either jaw, 

Were very dark and few ; — 
A daylight Jack-o'-Lanthorn, with 

No lanthorn shining through. 

The oldest crow that caws below 
Recalls no sadder case — 

120 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A pumpkin in complexion, and 

A "pimple" for a face ! 
The Father of all scare-crows, and 

The family disgrace. 

"Oh ! tell me, fellow-countryman, 

What is it thou has done, 
That thou dost go, the veriest show 

Beneath this blessed sun ! 
Recite ! rehearse ! in prose or verse, 

What is it thou hast done?" 

Right courteously my countryman 

Did roll his quid and eye, 
The while he "hitched his trousers up" 

To heighten his reply, 
And thus did speak, his hollow cheek 

Confirming his reply. 

" 'Twas want of fruit, when I was young ! 

(Thy righteous wrath restrain!) 
They kept its flavor from my tongue, 

Its fragrance from my brain ! 
My father's fault ! I lived on salt ! 

And lo ! this tale of pain !" 

"Were there no apples in those days ? 

No plum-trees, I implore ?" 
"The 'old man' had an orchard — yes, 

And rare the fruit it bore, 
Still ripening, with reluctant squeal, 

To pig-meat, evermore. 

" 'Twas bacon ! bacon ! all the year ! 
'Twas hog through cold and heat ! 
121 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



'Twas bacon ! bacon, everywhere ! 

And every bit to eat ! 
I lived on salt ! My father's fault ! 

And be his memory meet ! 

"What draughts of fire, my pangs require ! 

What 'drench' shall drown my grief ! 
The grog-man gets my living, and 

My liver, too ; in brief 
The autumn brings me many a fall, 

The summer no relief. 

"And now I'm prematurely old ! 

My hair is dead and dry, 
There's neither glow upon my cheek, 

Nor gladness in my eye." 
He ceased to speak, and down his cheek, 

A tear drop rattled dry ! 

Farewell ! thou most unhappy man ! 

Let all thy warning heed ! 
Thy wasted youth ! thy sorrows ! — sooth, 

There's wisdom in thy creed ! 
And health to him in trunk and limb 

Who plants an apple seed ! 

And goldenly upon his bough, 

And gladly at his knee, 
Each year shall bring a brighter spring, 

And fairer fruit — for he 
Who draws his sap from Nature's tap, 
Shall flourish like a tree ! 
Torch Hill, Ga., 
March, 1858 



122 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



JUNIALUSKEE 
A famous Southern Apple of Indian Origin 

Where shall the red man rest at last, that the white 

man shall not find him ? 
Where shall his wigwam smoke arise, nor draw his 

"fate" behind him ? 
Where shall he plant an apple-seed that a pale-face 

shall not gather 
The golden fruit ere the downward root hath tapped 

the Indian's father? 

Under his spreading apple tree, to his sons and 
daughters dusky, 

With their heads bowed down to their travel-gear, 
spoke Chieftain Junialuskee. 

His sons and daughters are on their way, and Junia- 
luskee follows. 

And his apple tree? Why, Junialuskee sold it for 
fifty dollars ! 

January, i860 



NANTAHALEE 

A famous Apple 

You've heard, I think, of the beautiful maid 

Who fled from Love's caresses, 
Till her beautiful toes were turned to roots, 
And both her shoulders to beautiful shoots, 
And her beautiful cheeks to beautiful fruits, 
And to blossoming spray her tresses ! 

I've seen her, man ! she's living yet 
Up in a Cherokee valley ! 
123 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



She's an apple tree ! and her name might be, 
In the softly musical Cherokee, 

A long-drawn "Nantahalee !" 
Tis as sweet a word as you'll read or write ; 
Not quite as fair as the thing, yet quite 
Sufficient to start an old anchorite 
Out of his ashes to bless and bite 

The beautiful "Nantahalee !" 



Torch Hill, 
April I, 1859 



REMINISCENCES 
On visiting the Eagle and Phoenix Mills at Columbus, Ga. 

Childhood ! The Chattahoochee's banks, 

My scene of summer playing; 
The first to cross on the first planks 

Of the first bridge-King's laying. 

Wild woods ; wild waters ; wilder men ; 

Beyond my pen's inditing ; 
We wore the look of Donnybrook, 

Trading, carousing, fighting. 

The sly deer, in his shady dell, 

Slept, of a foe undreaming ; 
And the hoarse torrent mingled well 

With the fierce eagle's screaming. 

A lad, with lads of dusky skin 

I shared each sylvan passion ; 
Shot, fished, and snared the terrapin 

In the true Indian fashion. 
124 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A youth, I felt the blow of doom 

Our races rend apart ; 
In a loved mate borne mangled home, 

A bullet through his heart. 

Again, how strange and swift the change 

From such a wild beginning ; 
Where the chained river sings in tune 

To the tamed ''Eagle's" spinning. 

Oh ! mighty power of human thought, 
Through rapine, fire and slaughter 

That such a wondrous work has wrought 
In rocks and falling water ! 

The force to rend the continent, 
Hurled headlong down its bed, 

Halts for this severed filament 
Of weightless, floating thread ! 

The demon of a world a-whir, 

With rattle, clash and whirl, 
Held in leash of gossamer 

And guided by a girl ! 

The Eagle's master took me through 

Long halls and lofty story, 
Until I knew how cotton grew 

Perfect through Purgatory! 

Through pangs of cauldron, rack and wheel, 

Till one might safely rank it 
With blushing Psyche's bridal veil, 

Or her first baby's blanket ! 

125 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And still the river's stately rhyme 
Rang through the stalwart timbers, 

The thunders of a mightier mill, 
And woke a greater miracle ; 
God's marvel that remembers ! 



126 



WAR POEMS 



WAR POEMS 

THE MIDNIGHT CROSS 

In Idyls 

To the Women of the South — dearer for the midnight, 
and clearer for the Cross — I consecrate these little poems, 
through One whose virtues, illustrating her native Vir- 
ginia and her adopted Georgia, exhibit a type of woman- 
hood rare in any annals but the sacred. 

DEDICATION 

In steadfast Hope! God's Majesty, 

What midnight triumph mars 
That brings thy knee, Humanity, 

To bend beneath His stars ! 

Clearer than Hope, the clarion creed 
That sways the whole world prone, 

This shadow is a King's, indeed, 
These stars are all His own. 



E. P. N. C— A LILY OF THE VALLEY 

Thy smile, sweet sister, on my lay, 

Is as the stars, I ween, 
That brightens o'er this brilliant's ray, 

Which, else, no light had seen ! 
That kindles o'er some brooklet's way, 

Where, else, no song had been ! 

129 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



If aught of summer worth it brings 

In bloom or melodies, 
Tis little for the lyric wings 

Thy radiance taught to rise, 
But little for a bird that sings 

So near his Paradise. 

By Hope in many a broken home, 
And by the tears that shed 

The proudest splendor of the tomb 
Above the humblest head, 

This song but asks thy soul's perfume 
To crown our quick and dead. 



THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY 

To William Norborne Nelson 

The knightliest of the knightly race 

That, since the days of old, 
Have kept the lamp of chivalry 

Alight in hearts of gold ; 
The kindliest of the kindly band 

That, rarely hating ease, 
Yet rode with Spotswood round the land, 

And Raleigh round the seas. 

Who climbed the blue Virginia hills 

Against embattled foes, 
And planted there, in valleys fair, 

The lily and the rose ; 
Whose fragrance lives in many lands, 

Whose beauty stars the earth, 
And lights the hearths of happy homes 

With loveliness and worth. 

130 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



We thought they slept ! — the sons who kept 

The names of noble sires, 
And slumbered while the darkness crept 

Around their vigil fires ; 
But, aye, the "Golden Horseshoe" Knights 

Their old Dominion keep, 
Whose foes have found enchanted ground, 

But not a knight asleep ! 



LITTLE GIFFEN 

Out of the focal and foremost fire, 
Out of the hospital walls as dire, 
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene, 
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen !) 
Specter ! such as you seldom see, 
Little Giffen, of Tennessee ! 

"Take him and welcome I" the surgeons said 
Little the doctor can help the dead ! 
So we took him, and brought him where 
The balm was sweet in the summer air; 
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed — 
Utter Lazarus, heel to head ! 

And we watched the war with abated breath, 
Skeleton boy against skeleton death. 
Months of torture, how many such ? 
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch ; 
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye 
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die. 

And didn't. Nay, more ! in death's despite 
The crippled skeleton learned to write. 

131 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



''Dear Mother," at first, of course ; and then 
"Dear Captain," inquiring about the men. 
Captain's answer : "Of eighty and five, 
Giffen and I are left alive." 

Word of gloom from the war, one day ; 

Johnson pressed at the front, they say. 

Little Giffen was up and away ; 

A tear — his first — as he bade good-by, 

Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye. 

"I'll write, if spared !" There was news of the 

fight; 
But none of Giffen. He did not write. 

I sometime fancy that were I king 

Of the princely knights of the Golden Ring, 

With the song of the minstrel in mine ear, 

And the tender legend that trembles here, 

I'd give the best on his bended knee, 

The whitest soul of my chivalry, 

For "Little Giffen," of Tennessee. 



WILLIAM NELSON CARTER 

Soldier of the South at sixteen, of the cross at nineteen, 
died at Key West, aged twenty-one. 

Spoke from the stainless azure 

Of immemorial veins, 
"War for the Right is over, 

Battle for bread remains." 

And he carried his bright smile from us, 
Our choral of bird and breeze, 

132 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



To the light of the tideless summers, 
The song of the tropic seas. 

So far — yet his soul's clear brightness 
Drew nearer, and never cold ; 

Found speech in the sea-bloom's whiteness, 
And kisses in fruits of gold. 

And sweeter than day-spring's murmur 
To the palm when the spice-wind stirs 

Were the voices that sang from the summer, 
"Your darling has won his spurs I" 

And we sang to the voice of the summer, 
With a smile that was glad to tears, 

"If your sea or your sand yield honor, 
Trust to the cavaliers !" 

Sang ! with the summer stooping 
To shatter us, root and crest ; 

With the lightning to signal "drooping," 
And the thunder to crash "at rest." 

Dumb ! and the clouds close o'er us, 
And the world reels blank and dim. 

Blind ! with our hands before us 
Beseeching the mists for him. 

Christ's soldier ! Through all the shadows 
One lily of light shall rise — 

Not far ! though it smiles from the meadows 
And summers of Paradise. 

Torch Hill, 
June 23, 1869 



133 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



LEE 

This wondrous valley ! hath it spells 

And golden alchemies, 
That so its chaliced splendor dwells 

In these imperial eyes ? 

This man hath breathed all balms of light, 
And quaffed all founts of grace, 

Till Glory, on the mountain height, 
Has met him face to face. 

Ye kingly hills ! ye dimpled dells ! 

Haunt of the eagle — dove, 
Grant us your wine of woven spells 

To grow like him we love. 



OUR GREAT CAPTAIN 

"Stonewall"' Jackson 

The shout of battle hath fled, 

The flame of it fallen dim ; 
We are sick of the war, it is said, 

Weary of tales so grim. 
But to-night, and our Captain lies dead ; 

To-night, and we think of him. 

Knight of the cloudless sun, 

Ithuriel of the spear, 
Whose touch was the foe undone, 

Whose name was a nation's cheer ; 
Whose voice and Victory's one, 

Vanished in silence here. 

134 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



But the flash of a fusillade, 

In the gloom that hath lifted never, 
And our guide and our glory fade 

In the Wilderness forever, 
Till we follow his smile to the shade 

Of the Tree, by the beautiful river. 

In the shadows with no release 

From the sorrows that haunt us grim, 

Where our hopes at their fountain cease, 
And the light of the Heaven is dim, 

It is strength, it is hope, it is peace, 
It is triumph to think of Him. 



DEAD JACKSON 

A chaplet ! as ye pause, ye brave, 

Beside the broad Potomac's wave ; 

A wreath ! above dead Jackson's grave ! 

Against a hundred thousand one 
Whose dauntless manhood held alone 
Virginia's threshold and his own ! 

Hath vengeance tarried ? Swifter, none, 
Since midnight lightning flashed upon 
The sword of God and Gideon ! 

Hath God forgotten ? Who hath led 
Your legions to this narrow bed, 
Whose very name recalls the dead ! 

A Jackson ! let your banners fly, 
And forward with the batle cry 
Of Jackson and of Liberty ! 

135 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON 
Shiloh 

His soul to God ! on a battle-psalm ! 

The soldier's plea to Heaven ! 
From the victor-wreath to the shining Palm 
From the battle's core to the central calm, 

And Peace of God in Heaven. 

Oh, Land ! in your midnight of mistrust 

The golden gates flew wide, 
And the kingly soul of your wise and just 
Passed in light from the house of dust 

To the Home of the Glorified. 



THE SWORD IN THE SEA 

The billows plunge like steeds that bear 
The knights with snow-white crests ; 

The sea-winds blare like bugles where 
The Alabama rests. 

Old glories from their splendor-mists 
Salute with trump and hail 

The sword that held the ocean lists 
Against the world in mail. 

And down from England's storied hills. 
From lyric slopes of France, 

The old bright wine of valor fills 
The chalice of Romance. 

For here was Glory's tourney-field, 
The tilt-yard of the sea ; 

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The battle-path of kingly wrath, 
And kinglier courtesy. 

And down the deeps, in sunless heaps, 
The gold, the gem, the pearl, 

In one broad blaze of splendor belt 
Great England like an earl. 

And there they rest, the princeliest 

Of earth's regalia gems, 
The starlight of our Southern Cross, 

The Sword of Raphael Semmes. 

Like that great glaive that Arthur gave 

In guerdon to the sea ; 
"Excalibur," that sleeps below, 
Until the great sea-bugles blow 

The summons of the Free. 



"GRACIE," OF ALABAMA 

Incident related by General R. H. Chilton, who was nick- 
named "Grade." 

On, sons of mighty stature, 

And souls that match the best ; 

When nations name their jewels 
Let Alabama rest. 

Gracie, of Alabama ! 

'Twas on that dreadful day 
When howling hounds were fiercest, 

With Petersburg at bay. 

Gracie, of Alabama, 

Walked down the lines with Lee, 

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Marking through mists of gunshot 
The clouds of enemy. 

Scanning the Anaconda 

At every scale and joint ; 
And halting, glasses level 

At gaze on "Dead Man's Point." 

Thrice, Alabama's warning 

Fell on a heedless ear, 
While the relentless lead-storm, 

Converging, hurtled near. 

Till straight before his Chieftain, 

Without a sound or sign, 
He stood, a shield the grandest, 

Against the Union line! 

And then the glass was lowered 

And voice that faltered not 
Said, in its measured cadence, 

"Why, Gracie, you'll be shot!" 

And Alabama answered : 

"The South will pardon me 
If the ball that goes through Gracie 

Comes short of Robert Lee !" 

Swept a swift flash of crimson 

Athwart the Chieftain's cheek, 
And the eyes whose glance was "knighthood" 

Spake as no king could speak. 

And side by side with Gracie 
He turned from shot and flame; 

Side by side with Gracie 
Up the grand aisle of Fame. 

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BEAUREGARD 

Let the trumpet shout once more, 

Beauregard ! 
Let the battle-thunders roar, 

Beauregard ! 
And again by yonder sea, 
Let the swords of all the free 
Leap forth to fight with thee, 

Beauregard ! 

Old Sumter loves thy name, 

Beauregard ! 
Grim Moultrie guards thy fame, 

Beauregard ! 
Oh ! first in Freedom's fight ; 
Oh ! steadfast in the right ; 
Oh ! brave and Christian Knight ; 

Beauregard ! 

St. Michael, with his host, 

Beauregard ! 
Encamps by yonder coast, 

Beauregard ! 
And the Demon's might shall quail, 
And the Dragon's terrors fail, 
Were he trebly clad in mail, 

Beauregard ! 

Not a leaf shall fall away, 

Beauregard ! 
From the laurel won to-day, 

Beauregard ! 
While the ocean breezes blow, 
While the billows lapse and flow 
O'er the Northman's bones below, 

Beauregard ! 
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Let the trumpet shout once more, 

Beauregard ! 
Let the battle-thunders roar, 

Beauregard ! 
From the center to the shore, 
From the sea to the land's core, 
Thrills the echo, evermore, 

Beauregard ! 
At Charleston 



GENERAL JUBAL EARLY 
An Incident 

A battery, on our left, 

Had thundered through the day, 
Deftly served, by the lanes it cleft, 

In our lines across the way ; 
Gliding swift with the battle drift, 

It moved and blazed away — 
A meteor in the clouds of war, 

A demon of dismay. 

"Boom I" and a bullet brake 

From the bellowing battery, 
With a curl of smoke and a "whiz" — no 
joke — 

By the ear of Jubal E., 
And he turned in his saddle and spake, 

" Take that battery." 

They went, as the wildfire runs ! 

Positions, from one to three — ■ 
They captured ; but not the guns 

Of the nimble battery ! 

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They hesitate ! and they halt ! Oh, shame ! 

And the battery boasted louder, 
While a courier came thro' the fume and 
flame 

To the General for — "Powder !" 

Stiff in his stirrups then 

He stood in his mighty choler, 
As he thundered along the van, 

Where courier dared not follow — 
"Powder !" — a cuss word — "Men !" 

"Confound it ! and can't ye holler !" 

"If a Yankee can hide in '11, 

A Rebel is bound to follow ! 
Take the battery with a yell ! 

Forward, confound you, holler ! 

They went for the guns as the red fire runs, 
With a roar like a charging sea, 

That shook the air ! and then and there 
They captured the battery ; 

And the loudest shout, as they bro't it out — 

I mean no joke, and I make no doubt — 
Was the shout of Jubal E. 



THE GAP 



(Boonsboro Gap, or South Mountain Pass) 
To D. H. Hill 

Prouder than Persia's noontide was 
The dawn that hurled yon bannered mass, 
The banded Orient, on the pass 
Barred by thine arm, Leonidas ! 

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But prouder still the vestal lights 
Of glory on these vigil heights ; 
And proudest yet the hand that writes, 
Here wrestled Arthur and his knights ! 



LABOR— SACRIFICE 

With the device of a bullock ; from the seal of a Southern 
gentleman. 

That cream was of the kindliest strain 

That meadow ever drew 
From sunlight and the summer rain, 

From darkness and the dew ! 
That left no stain in yonder vein 
But Heaven's — the sapphire blue. 
That gentleman, we knew, 
So gentle and so true ; 
A knight whose signet bore 
A "Bullock," and no more ; 
A quaint device, by Sacrifice 
And Labor won of yore ! 

And matchless sweet the golden wheat 

That met and moulded him, 
A man complete from head to feet 

In grace of soul and limb ; 
That lent his gaze the lion's blaze, 
His smile — who smiles like him ? 
Ah ! tremulous and dim, 
Through tears we think of him, 
The knight whose signet bore 
That quaint device of "Sacrifice" 
And "Labor," and no more. 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Upon no statelier sight 

The circling sun hath smiled. 
Nor oak of loftier height 

Dropped shade so sweet and mild ; 
Where love came down like light, 
And happiness grew wild ! 

The sage, the little child, 
Peasant and Prince, have smiled 
Around his knees who bore 
The Bullock ; quaint device 
Of Toil and Sacrifice, 
Which all his fathers wore, 
Which he shall wear no more. 

For he is dead ! Beneath the tread 

Of battle, in the roar 
That rent the sod, his face to God, 

He went, and came no more ! 
The fragrance of the path he trod 
In Sacrifice is o'er. 

Yet all the kindliest rays 
Of all the knightliest days 
Kindled forever more, 
Around the cross he bore ; 
Around the quaint device 
Of Toil and Sacrifice 
That our great Bishop wore. 



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THE CREST 

To the tender love and fiery valor led and illustrated by 
John B. Gordon. 

The valiant to the van ! 

For here the contest lies ! 
The focal path of battle-wrath, 

Where whoso buffets dies ! 
The red-ripe star of central war 

Signals the bravest, ''Rise !" 

Ye far-off prairie flowers ! 

That deadly hush, ye know, 
When the swift midnight lowers, 

And the black northers blow ! 
And here the prairie flowers 

Looked down upon the foe ! 

Braves from the Rio Grande — 
Knights from the Shenandoah — 

Sons of the central land 
With the Stone Mountain core — 

A handful in the hand 
Of Glory, and no more ! 

The flower of valor's wreath, 
Around the crest they form, 

Like stars that smile on death 
From Heaven's eternal calm — 

Shining, though all beneath 
Rocks to the bursting storm ! 

"Now ! by your land's last claim," 
"On life's last loyalty"— 

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"Go down !" and the gray flame 
Leapt downward, joyously ! 

And, in the van, the foremost man, 
Rode the good Robert Lee ! 

Fell hush upon the line ! 

Came halt to the attack ! 
Then burst the war's great "mine" 

Of Glory — "Lee ! go back !" 
And by God's love divine, 

They bore the Chieftain back ! 

And then, through blacker gloom 
Than shrouds the charnel corse 

They swept with stainless plume 
And bore the Starry Cross ! 

And not the trump of Doom 
Shall bring that triumph, loss ! 

Braves of the Rio Grande, 
Knights of the Shenandoah, 

Sons of the central land, 

With the Stone Mountain core ! 

In that proud deed ye stand 
Star-laureled, evermore ! 



LOYAL 

To General Cleburne 

The good Lord Douglas — dead of old — 

In his last journeying 
Wore at his heart, encased in gold, 

The heart of Bruce, his king. 

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Through Paynim lands to Palestine, 

For so his troth was plight ; 
To lay that gold on Christ his shrine, 

Let fall what peril might. 

By night and day, a weary way 

Of vigil and of fight, 
Where never rescue came by day, 

Nor ever rest by night. 

And one by one the valiant spears 

Were smitten from his side, 
And one by one the bitter tears 

Fell for the brave that died. 

Till fierce and black around his track 

He saw the combat close, 
And counted but the single sword 

Against uncounted foes. 

He drew the casket from his breast, 

He bared his solemn brow ; 
Oh, foremost of the kingliest ! 

Go "first in battle" now ! 

Where leads my Lord of Bruce, the sword 

Of Douglas shall not stay ! 
Forward ! And to the feet of Christ 

I follow thee, to-day. 

The casket flashed ; the battle clashed, 
Thundered and rolled away; 

And dead above the heart of Bruce 
The heart of Douglas lay ! 

Loyal ! Methinks the antique mould 

Is lost, or theirs alone 
Who sheltered Freedom's heart of gold, 

Like Douglas, with their own ! 

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STONE MOUNTAIN 
To Alexander Hamilton Stephens 

Forged in the furnace of the world's mid-fire; 
Smit of all scourges of the fierce and dire ; 
Worn of all waters ; the volcano's core 
Enters the Heavens at last, triumphant evermore ! 

Kindred to all, that, clasped by sod or shroud, 
Kindles the crystal that shall cleave the cloud. 
Crowned with the stars ! a cenotaph to stand 
Till the last flood of fire shall oversweep the land. 

How vile to this, the tyrant-triumph, hid 
In the worn Sphinx, the wasted Pyramid ! 
How poor and pale all pomps the world has known 
To this unblazoned shaft of Georgia stone ! 

Whose name and fame shall front the ages with 
Thine awful grace, imperial monolith? 
With fire as central as the crater's own, 
And soul as steadfast as the granite stone? 

His, of the thunderous deluge, worn and tried ! 
Him, of the furnace-dungeon, purified ! — 
The crest of Memnon o'er the orient seas, 
Hymettus-voiced with silvery symphonies. 

Our Athos-Alexander, carven on 
The unbowed head of mourning Macedon ; 
Tender as starlight, with the pleiad gaze 
O'er the lost Eden of the lovely days. 

Whose mighty "Work" salutes the sun at last, 
The Rock Cathedral of the fiery Past, 

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Shrining the princely dust with sacramental care, 
And kindling darkened aisles with censer, song and 
prayer. 

Touching old banners with their battle-glow, 
And the worn bugles till their triumphs blow ! 
Lending sweet music to the tears that shed 
The tenderest splendor o'er our Freedom's dead ! 

And clarion clangors to the starward arch, 
Where her gray cohorts rally to the march ; 
Blending all glories of the arch of light, 
To robe, and crown, and consecrate the ''Right !" 

A kingly vigil, where enchantment lies 
On the pale lips of peerless chivalries ! 
A godlike deed, to bid these charnel gates 
Blaze with the resurrection of the States ! 

May we not mate the mountain and the man, — 
The granite dome and the great Georgian? 
Kindred to all, that swathed by sod or shroud, 
Kindles the crystal that shall cleave the cloud. 

Their pathos One ! — the melancholy grace 
Of Sinai's shadow on the Prophet's face, 
When the lone summit of the thunders saw 
The broken People in the broken Law. 

And the last splendor of the lightning fell 

On shattered tablets and lost Israel ! 

One in their grandeur ! Who shall bid apart 

These stalwart coils that clasp our Georgia's heart ? 

Or crown this majesty that meets the Heavens 
With other immortality than — "Stephens !" 
Than His, whose voice in Freedom's name hath 

given 
From all this earth the noblest plea to Heaven ! 

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A BATTLE BALLAD 
To General J. E. Johnston 

A Summer Sunday morning, 

July the twenty-first, 
In eighteen hundred sixty-one, 

The storm of battle burst. 

For many a year the thunder 

Had muttered deep and low, 
And many a year, through hope and fear, 

The storm had gathered slow. 

Now hope had fled the hopeful, 

And fear was with the past ; 
And on Manassas' cornfields 

The tempest broke at last. 

A wreath above the pine-tops, 

The booming of a gun ; 
A ripple on the cornfields, 

And the battle was begun. 

A feint upon our center, 

While the foeman massed his might, 
For our swift and sure destruction, 

With his overwhelming "right." 

All the summer air was darkened 
With the tramping of their host ; 

All the Sunday stillness broken 
By the clamor of their boast. 

With their lips of savage shouting, 
And their eyes of sullen wrath, 

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Goliath, with the weaver-beam, 
The champion of Gath. 

Are they men who guard the passes, 

On our "left" so far away ? 
In thy cornfields, O Manassas, 

Are they men who fought to-day ? 

Our boys are brave and gentle, 

And their brows are smooth and white ; 

Have they grown to men, Manassas, 
In the watches of a night ? 

Beyond the grassy hillocks 

There are tents that glimmer white ; 
Beneath the leafy covert 

There is steel that glistens bright. 

There are eyes of watchful reapers 

Beneath the summer leaves, 
With a glitter as of sickles 

Impatient for the sheaves. 

They are men who guard the passes, 
They are men who guard the ford ; 

Stands our David at Manassas, 
The champion of the Lord. 

They are men who guard our altars, 
And beware, ye sons of Gath, 

The deep and deathful silence 
Of the lion in your path. 

Lo ! the foe was mad for slaughter, 
And the whirlwind hurtled on ; 

But our boys had grown to heroes, 
They were lions, every one. 

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And they stood a wall of iron, 
And they shone a wall of flame, 

And they beat the baffled tempest 
To the caverns whence it came. 

And Manassas' sun descended 

On their armies crushed and torn, 

On a battle bravely ended, 
On a nation grandly born. 

The laurel and the cypress, 
The glory and the grave, 

We pledge to thee, O Liberty ! 
The life-blood of the brave. 



OUR LEFT 



By the sword of St. Michael, 

The old Dragon, threw! 
By David, his sling, 

And the giant he slew ! 
Let us write us a rhyme 

As a record, to tell 
How the South on a time, 

Stormed the ramparts of Hell 

With her bare-footed boys. 

Had the South in her borders 

A hero to spare? 
Or a heart at her altars ? 

Lo! It's life-blood was there! 
And the black, battle grime 

Might never disguise 
The smile of the South 

On the lips and the eyes 

Of her bare-footed boys. 

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There's a grandeur in fight, 

And a terror, the while ; 
But none like the light 

Of that terrible smile ; 
The smile of the South 

When the storm-cloud unrolls ; 
The lightning that loosens 

The wrath in the souls 

Of her bare-footed boys. 

It withered the foe, 

As the red light that runs 
Through the dead forest leaves, 

And he fled from his guns, 
Grew the smile to a laugh — 

Rose the laugh to a yell, 
As the iron-clad hoofs 

Clattered back into Hell 

From our bare-footed boys. 



THE RIDER IN GRAY 

The Guerrilla 

"Let us live with a hope !" 

Let the bugle be mute, for he needs not its warning, 

Nor the drum with its reveille strains ; 
For he rides to the tune of his steed stepping stilly 
And the blood as it bounds in his veins, 
In the silence of death, 
With the swiftness of breath, 
As the falcon that sweeps on his prey, 
As the eagle that swings 
On his thunder-bolt wings, 
Is the rush of the rider in gray. 

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There's a kiss on his cheek, but it murmured not 
"Tarry"; 
And a tear, but it faltered not "Stay" — 
He'll remember the lips when the foe lies before 
him 
And the eyes when the stars are away. 
The forest lies black 
That shelters his track, 
And the swamp closes dark on his way. 
But the blessing and cheer 
Of that kiss and that tear 
Shall ride with the rider in gray. 

The winds may have heard, but they whispered it 
never ; 
And the stars, but they may not tell, 
The deed he hath wrought with a hero's endeavor 
For the land that he loved so well. 
The tyrant may boast 
His numberless host 
And exult in his haughty array, 
But the angel of wrath 
Fallows hard on his path. 
And strikes with the rider in gray. 

While we live in the hopes of a better day, brother, 

A morrow of sunlight and bloom. 
Let us honor the brave, whose valor unfailing 
Burned on through the midnight of gloom. 
By the coursers so swift, 
By the sabers they lift 
And the scabbards they threw away, 
May the light of the dawn 
Of our Liberty's morn 
Fall bright on the rider in gray. 

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CANNON SONG 

DEDICATION 

To Captain E. A. Dawson 

When the night grows black o'er the bivouac, 

And the stars gleam cold and brightly, 
Let the song that cheers our cannoneers 

Be sung by our camp-fires nightly. 
Ere the music shall die, ere the murmurs fly, 

While the melody fades, yet lingers ; 
An echo shall come from the "Old Folks at 
Home/; 

And a blessing shall breathe on the singers. 

SONG 
For the Terrells 

Aha ! a song for the trumpet's tongue, 

For the bugle to sing before us, 
When our gleaming guns, like clarions, 

Shall thunder in battle chorus ! 
Where the rifles ring, where the bullets sing, 

Where the black bombs whistle o'er us, 
With rolling wheel and rattling peal 

We'll thunder in battle chorus ! 

CHORUS 

With the cannon's flash and the cannon's 
crash, 

With the cannon's roar and rattle, 
Let Freedom's sons, with their gleaming guns, 

Go down to their country's battle ! 

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Their brassy throats shall learn the notes 

That make old tyrants quiver, 
'Till the war is won or each Terrell gun 

Grows cold with our hearts forever. 
Where the laurel waves o'er our brothers' 
graves, 

Who have gone to their rest before us, 
Here's a requiem shall sound for them, 

And thunder in battle chorus ! 

CHORUS 

With the cannon's flash and the cannon's 
crash, 

With the cannon's roar and rattle, 
Let Freedom's sons, with their gleaming guns, 

Go down to their country's battle ! 

By the light that lies in our Southern skies, 

By the spirits that watch above us ; 
By the gentle hands in our summer lands, 

And the gentle hearts that love us, 
Our Father's faith let us keep till death, 

Their fame in its cloudless splendor, 
As men who stand for their mother-land, 

And die — but never surrender! 

CHORUS 

With the cannon's flash and the cannon's 
crash, 

With the cannon's roar and rattle, 
Let Freedom's sons, with their gleaming guns, 

Go down to their country's battle ! 



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WEDDED IN WAR* 

The trumpet hath rung in the valleys, 

The mountains awake to the cry, 
And the tread of a host, as it rallies, 

Returns in the echo's reply ! 
For the answer that leaps to the order 

That summons the swords of the free, 
Is the bayonet's gleam on the border, 

The battery's crash by the sea. 

Though the fairest and dearest are grieving, 

When the feast for the bridal lies spread, 
Though the roses that bloom for the living 

To-morrow may droop for the dead ; 
Still the answer that leaps to the order 

That summons the souls of the free, 
Is the bayonet's gleam on the border, 

The battery's crash by the sea. 

Where the fiercest of tempests shall rattle, 

Where the thickest of foemen shall reel, 
Let Georgia go down to the battle, 

A phalanx of flame and of steel : 
Let the answer that leaps to the order 

That summons her sons ever be, 
The bayonet's gleam on the border, 

The battery's crash by the sea. 

July, 1861 



*Written on the double wedding of George W. Dillingham 
and William F. Hall. — From the army on leave of absence. 



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THE SOUTH— IN MEMORIAL 

Easter, April 26, 1865 

Then cross her hands in perfect rest, 
And lay the Bible on her breast, 
In witness of the good she sought 
In token that her task is wrought. 

And carve on columns high and white 
Her foeman's Fame to prove her right ; 
And weave at will the victor's wreath, 
To veil his crown of fire beneath. 

For him, the worm that will not cease, 
And the fierce fiends that rend his peace 
For her a glory to outclimb 
All glories of recorded time. 

Twin-born with Liberty, she died 
In her last battle, by her side; 
Nor left upon the darkened earth 
A living witness of her worth. 

And not before the earth or skies, 
Shall prouder monument arise 
Than hers, whose weak memorial lies 
In these sweet lips and shrouded eyes. 

In token that her task is wrought — 
In witness of the good she sought — 
Cross her poor hands in perfect rest, 
And lay God's volume on her breast. 



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SOUTH IN MEMORIAL 

"Cordelia! Cordelia!" 

To General Robert Toomes, April, 1869 

The light hath lost its summer tints — 
The world, with woe, hath whitened, since 
The shrouded April, long ago, 
That laid our Lily in the snow ! 

The star that trembles down the West 
Returns not from its quiet rest — 
And if the dawn awakes the flowers, 
They shine for other eyes than ours ! 

And yet while grace of deed and thought 
Shall linger where her hands have wrought 
We see the April of her eyes, 
And wait her summer to arise. 

We wait the dawn with spice and myrrh — 
We tarry by the sepulchre — 
Where still the sentry's sullen tread 
Insults the victor, not the Dead. 

We cross her hands in perfect rest — 
We lay the Bible on her breast — 
We smooth the sod, we seal the stone, 
Her task is wrought, God rules His own. 

Twin-born with Liberty, she died 
In the great battle by her side ; 
Mute, save the proud appeal, that lies 
In silent lips and shrouded eyes. 

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The white palms crossed in perfect rest— 
The Book of God upon her breast — 
In witness of the good she sought — 
In token that her task is wrought. 

'Tis a proud monument they rear, 
By this proud pathos of Judea — 
This Roman scoff that fronts the skies — 
Watching lest Righteousness arise ! 

Watch, Eagle ! — for a tale is told 
Of slumber on thine eyes of old — 
Of triumph, blind ; of tears that kept 
The better vigil that they wept. 

Watch, Roman ! lest the dawning hour 
Write dust and ashes on thy power — 
And retribution, swift and dread, 
Rise with Righteousness from the Dead ! 



THE HALL 

"Page Brook" 



There is dust on the doorway, there is mold on the 

wall — 
There's a chill at the hearthstone — a hush through 

the hall; 
And the stately old mansion stands darkened and 

cold 
By the leal, loving hearts that it sheltered of old. 

No light at the lattice, no gleam from the door ; 
No feast on its table, no dance on its floor ; 
But "Glory departed," and silence alone. 
"Dust unto Dust" upon pillar and stone ! 

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No laughter of childhood, no shout on the lawn ; 
No footsteps to echo the feet that are gone : 
Feet of the beautiful, forms of the brave, 
Failing in other lands, gone to the grave. 

No carol at morning, no hymn rising clear, 

No song at the bridal, nor chaunt at the bier. 

All the chords of its symphonies scattered and 

riven, 
Its altar in ashes, its incense — in Heaven ! 

Tis an ache at the heart, thus lonely to stand 

By the wreck of a Home once the pride of the 

land; 
Its chambers unfilled as its children depart, 
The melody stilled in its desolate heart. 

Yet softly the sunlight still rests on the grass, 
And lightly and swiftly the cloud-shadows pass, 
And still the wide meadow exults in the sheen, 
With its foam crest of snow, and its billows of 



And the verdure shall creep to the mouldering 

wall, 
And the sunshine shall sleep in the desolate hall — 
And the foot of the pilgrim shall find to the last 
Some fragrance of Home, at this shrine of the 

Past. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS 

Brave "ends" may consecrate a cruel story, 
And crown a dastard deed ; . 

Brave hearts are laureled with eternal glory 
That held another creed. 

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Who knows the end ? or in what record written 

The crowned results abide? 
The volume closed not with an Abel smitten 

Or Christ the crucified. 

How poor and pale from yonder heights of 
Heaven 

Our Caesar's pomp appears 
To those who wear the purple robes of Stephen, 

Or Mary's crown of tears ! 

So let us watch a single pale star, keeping 

Its vigil o'er the tide ; — 
No truth is lost for which the true are weeping, 

Nor dead for which they died. 



DIXIE 

Air — "Annie Laurie" 

Oh ! Dixie's homes are bonnie, 

And Dixie's hearts are true ; 
And 'twas down in dear old Dixie 

Our life's first breath we drew; 

And there our last we'd sigh, 
And for Dixie, dear old Dixie, 

We'll lay us down and die. 

No fairer land than Dixie's 

Has ever seen the light; 
No braver boys than Dixie's 

To stand for Dixie's right. 

With hearts so true and high, 
And for Dixie, dear old Dixie, 

To lay them down and die. 

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Oh ! Dixie's vales are sunny, 
And Dixie's hills are blue; 

And Dixie's skies are bonnie, 
And Dixie's daughters, too, 
As stars in Dixie's sky; 

And for Dixie, dear old Dixie, 
We'd lay us down and die. 

No more upon the mountain, 

No longer by the shore, — 
The trumpet song of Dixie 

Shall shake the world no more ; 
For Dixie's songs are o'er, 

Her glory gone on high, 
And the brave who bled for Dixie 

Have laid them down to die. 



ARTHUR THE GREAT KING* 

"Men wyt not whether he lyveth or be dede !" 

— Ancient MS. 

To such a Kingly alliance of purity and constancy I 
would dedicate these lines following in the person of 
Jefferson Davis. 

A leaf, O Laureate, for thy crown, 

For this fair tracery — 
This silvery mist that shadows down 

A Glory to the sea! 



*The genius of Mr. Tennyson has so illuminated the 
Legends of King Arthur that probably none to whom this 
poem comes will need a reminder of his achievements, 
aspirations or mysterious destiny. Should there be one 
such, I refer him to the Teacher, who from the vantage 

162 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Men walk as in the halls of death 
With mute though heavy tread; 

Men murmur with the muffled breath, 
"Alive ? or is he dead !" 

A shining bark hath cleft the dark — 

We see th£ seraph eyes ; 
We hear above the morning lark 

The silvery psalteries ; 
The song-burst of a triumph-arc 

Star-pulsing in the skies — 
The day may dwindle to a spark : — 

The Great King never dies ! 

A light, O Laureate, on thy crown 

Of more than laurel be 
That set the star "Excalibur" 

Forever on the sea ! 

Not "Dead", — though earth's last mountain be 
Piled on the black depths of the sea, 

And the last flame of lightning claim 
To carve his "Memory" ! 

There be of warders on the wall, 
Have heard by night his bugle-call, 
And watchers, ere the dawn unclose, 
Whose very tears are tint with rose. 



point of Poet Laureate of England, has reached the whole 
heart of humanity with a voice as sweet, and a significance 
as noble, as can be found anywhere in literature. 

While Dickens has done much to mellow and soften our 
common life, it is Tennyson who had glorified it — given it 
grace, bloom, and spirit. Penetrating our inmost recesses, 
he evokes whatever of that ultimate perfection which we 
call "Poetry" may linger there; and the man must be base 

K$3 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



As on some widowed neck the woe 
Of mourning veils a whiter snow 
Than April's first of whiteness, so 

Across our path of murk and wrath 
The clouds unclasp at times and show 

The vigil-gleam at "Camelot" ! 

His regal front is seamed and gaunt, 
His kingly curls are grizzled-scant, 
His war-steed worn to Rosinante! 

There's mist upon his knightly mail, 
And dust on every golden scale 
Of the great "Dragon," crest to tail ! 
Like moonlit mist on midnight snow 
The sun of battle smoulders low ! 
Alas ! the King at Camelot ! 

But on his Sword nor mould nor loss, 
From stainless steel to starry cross ! 

Ye wist, ye early at the tomb, 
The whiteness that is like his plume ! 
Beloved of the morning-star ! — 
Your eves have seen "Excalibur!" 



beyond naming, or blameless beyond conception, whom he 
cannot exalt or purify. 

Many that have not heard his name have beholden his 
brightness in the lives of others, and profited "unaware" 
by his ministration. 

Of the "Great King," then, so dear to English hearts and 
English poetry, I will only say that he typifies all emotions 
which love righteousness and hate iniquity; that he em- 
bodies, also, a great Hope, the greatest which can cheer 
our Mortality or emphasize our Immortality — the undying 
Hope of a final and eternal Justice. 

164 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And ye, that in the temples pray, 

Have witnessed, when the aisles are gray, 

A sudden rapture cleave the pane 

Beyond the oriel's glory-stain — 

That lingered in the holy place, 

The "iris" of an angel's grace ! 

Then HE whose head it kindled on 

Shined like Uriel of the sun ! — 

And were his face the Parian stone, 

And were his smile King Arthur's own — 

Of all that met his kindling eyes 

Not one should marvel, did he Rise ! 

"These Little Ones" ! these lambs that bear 

The dew-cross of our Christ, His care, 

These lilies, more than Eden blest, 

"These Little Ones" have touched His hem, 

Have looked upon his diadem, 

Have heard His footsteps walk with them, 

And bring us, from the shrouded isle 

Where His great glory bides the while, 

The very sunshine of his smile ! 

And one I know, whose saber shone 

The battle's eye-light, years agone, 

Who wears upon his folded hands 

The welcome of the angel lands, 

And bears upon his smiling lips, 

The seal no shadow can eclipse. 

Who waits me, as the days expire 
With Arthur's soul of love and fire. 

Doubt we then? 
While sacrilege is charnel wise — 
The arm that guilt in armor flies ! 
That Arthur — the great King shall rise ! 
That God's Eternal Truth shall reign 
Imperial o'er "His own" again ! 

165 



EARLIER POEMS 



EARLIER POEMS 



to the: old elm tree* 

Like the foam on the wave 

My boyhood has sped, 
And its rainbow colors 

Are broken and fled, 
And a tear oft glistens 

In memories ee 
For the days I have passed 

'Neath the old elm tree. 

On the silvery pinions 

Of butterfly Hope 
My mind often wanders 

From realities' scope, 
But weary it turns 

And gladly doth flee 
To the days I have passed 

'Neath the old elm tree. 

Though Ambition may twine me 

Her chaplet most fair — 
'Tis a wreath that may wither, 

Unstable as air. 
A chaplet I'll weave 

More pleasant to me — 
A garland of Leaves 

From the old elm tree. 

*Written at the age of seventeen. This poem originally 
contained another stanza, which has been lost. 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And when I have quitted 

The toils of this life, 
Disgusted of all, 

Its cares and its strife, 
I'll seek me a home, 

And that home shall be 
Overspread by the boughs 

Of the old elm tree. 



Columbus, Ga., 
December, 1839. 



SKETCHES WITH A PINE STRAW 
Writ on "Sande" 
THE PINE TREE 

It stands where Nature's pulses freeze 

Beneath the Polar eye, 
And hangs its drooping banners out 

'Neath India's burning sky. 
From north to south, from east to west, 

Where e'er the sun may shine, 
It lifts and waves its lordly crest — 

The all-enduring Pine. 

In regions wildest and unknown, 

Beside the restless sea, 
It breathes its deep and mellow tone 

Through Nature's minstrelsy ; 
'Tis heard upon the mountain's breast 

And by the river's line, 
And mid the busy haunts of men, — 

The melancholy Pine. 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Its balmy breath is on the air, 

Amid the forest gloom, 
The early winds of morning bear 

Its delicate perfume. 
Its dewy odor fills the sense 

At evening's slow decline, 
And night's soft pinions linger still 

Around the fragrant Pine. 

I love it — it hath been to me 

An old familiar friend, 
And broadly o'er my native land 

Its waving branches bend. 
And widely through its hallowed soil 

Its rugged roots entwine, 
And wreathe with every thought of home 

The well-remembered Pine. 

I love it, for its music breathes 

O'er many a hallowed spot 
Where lie the loved and lowly dead 

Who may not be forgot ; 
And when I seek their holy rest, 

Oh ! may this heart recline, 
My Southern home, upon thy breast, 

Beneath the mourning Pine. 



THE OLD DEAD PINE 

Its leaf is withered, its branch decayed, 
And the brave green crown it bore 

Hath passed with the music the night-wind made 
As it swept through its boughs of yore ; 

And it stands like a monarch to death betrayed, 
Whose glory returns no more, 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Lifting its giant arms on high, 
Penciled out on the clear blue sky, 
As the last red ray of the sun's decline 
Colors with beauty the old dead pine. 

We may not tell of the years that have fled 
Since its shadow hath circled there, 

Ere the lightning withered its stately head 
And its trunk grew brown and bare ; 

But it stands like a mourner above the dead, 
In desolate, deep despair, 

Lifting its giant arms on high, 

Penciled out on the clear blue sky, 

As the last red ray of the sun's decline 

Colors with beauty the old dead pine. 

We may not tell of the thoughts that keep 

Its treasures of olden days 
Since it saw the wild war band's circling sweep 

Or rang to their milder lays ; 
But it stands like a spirit whose wisdom deep 

No change might more amaze, 
Lifting its giant arms on high, 
Penciled out on the clear blue sky, 
As the last red ray of the sun's decline 
Colors with beauty the old dead pine. 

We may not tell how it sprung from earth, 

How it grew to a stately tree, 
'Till the dim day of its distant birth 

Was lost from its memory — 
'Till its glory was rent by the midnight mirth 

Of the storm-king's revelry, 
And 'twas left with its giant arms on high 
Penciled out on the clear blue sky, 
As the last red ray of the sun's decline 
Colors with beauty the old dead pine. 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Yet many a lesson the old Pine hath 

For the human heart to con — 
For strength in the dark day's stormy wrath- 

For peace when the night comes on — 
For a Heavenly trust when the weary path 

Of its pilgrimage is done. 
To stand with a strong heart proud and high, 
With a trusting gaze on the far blue sky, 
To wait for our last sun's last decline, 
This we may learn from the old Dead Pine. 

July 20, 1845 



TO LITTLE ANN PAGE CARTER 



The seer from the starry skies 

Would seek futurity ; 
But in the lovelier light that lies 

In the soft azure of thine eyes 
I'll read thy fate for thee : 

All woman's tenderness and love 

In those silk shadows shine ; 
May a bright blessing from above, 
With all that thy young heart must prove 
Of woman's lot, be thine. 

Thy forehead's violet veinlets tell 

That to that brow belong 
Rich treasures of the tome and shell, 
The might of genius, and the spell 

Of high, entrancing song. 

I read for thee no diadem 

Of glittering jewels wrought; 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



This brow shall wear no radiant gem, 
No flashing coronet to dim 
The light of burning thought. 

No scepter for this tiny hand — 

No scepter save the pen — 
That wings the spirit's high command, 
More potent than a monarch's wand 

To sway the hearts of men. 

I read no jeweled robe to twine 

Around thy queenly form, 
But hearts that bow at beauty's shrine, 
And sterner souls shall kneel at thine, 

And own its holier charm. 

Thus with the poet's prophet powers 

Thy future lot is given, — 
To tread through earth a path of flowers 
Where rosy-winged and happy hours 

Shall guide thy feet to heaven. 



TO LITTLE ANN PAGE CARTER 

The Seer, did he mark in vain 

Thy natal star arise, 
Set with the sadly shrouded light 

Of thy soft azure eyes? 
Those eyes, whose glance had caught above 
Unuttered eloquence of love. 

The Poet, did he wreathe in vain 
Thy gentle brow with flowers, 

174 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Fled with thy cheek of softer bloom 

From this dark path of ours? 
Those flowers but tell, beside the spot, 
The bloom the grave surrenders not. 

The spell is broke, yet not in vain 

That augury was given, 
For thou hast won thy crown ; thy star 

Hath melted into Heaven, 
Yet left to cheer us as it fled 
The gentle memory of the dead. 
November, 1845 



ON THE DEATH OF HIS GRANDMOTHER 

Most peacefully she passed through life, most gently 
did she die, 

Unquelled the music of her voice, unquenched her 
beaming eye ; 

Years had not reft a single charm that won us to her 
side, 

Nor hushed a single tone of love to which our hearts 
replied ; 

Time had but left a lovelier light upon her honored 
head, 

The grace that marked her early years still beauti- 
fied the dead. 

Oh! tears are not for those who leave this bleak 

world for the blest, 
Not for the servants of the Lord who from their 

labors rest, 
Not for the loved departed, in Life's glad summer 

gone — 

175 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



But for the broken-hearted, who tread the world 

alone — 
And not for thee who all the paths of righteousness 

hath trod, 
And now, when full of honored years art gathered 

up to God. 

The prints of lingering feet that tread around her 

lowly tomb, 
And scattered flowers that o'er it shed their beauty 

and perfume, 
The sadness of the lip and eye whene'er her name 

is heard, 
And memory wakes her thousand thoughts at that 

familiar word, 
All tell that with the fading light of her unmeasured 

worth — 
A beauty and a holiness have passed away from 

earth. 

April, 1849 



DEATH 



We have seen the strong man fail, 

The glorious eyes burn dim, 
The cheek in death grow pale, 

And we have wept for Him. 
We have seen the lovely die, 

The beautiful of earth, 
With gifts of promise high, 

Just bursting into birth, 
We have felt that life was vain 

Beside the closing grave, 
How weak its silver chain 

How impotent to save; 

176 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Yet with the darkness of the hour 
Hath passed the impress of its power. 

We have marked the faith that springs 

In life's last labored breath, 
When failed the heart's bright strings 

Beneath the hands of Death ; 
The smile upon the cheek 

E'en while that cheek grew chill — 
We have felt our treasures weak 

Yet loved those treasures still ; 
We have heaved the secret sigh, 

And turned to earth again, 
Where all the heart holds dear 

Is swift to pass away ; 
Still clinging with that feeble grasp 
To things that wither in our clasp. 

Our hopes are reared on dust — 

Our joys a less than dream— 
A rope of sand our trust — 

Our life a meteor gleam, 
Its birth and death a tear, 

Its suffering and peace 
A moment mingle here 

And in that moment cease. 
Hope after hope retires 

And pleasures pass away, 
But till the spark expires 

We trust its fitful ray, 
And seek not for that better part 
That fills and purifies the heart. 

Where dwells the human heart 
Amid earth's brightest things 

But finds the bitter part 
That desolation brings ? 

177 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



To smile — 'tis but to wear 

Deceit o'er sorrow's cup ; 
To weep — 'tis but to bear 

Life's common burden up; 
To hope — 'tis but the bloom 

That lingers 'round decay; 
To love — 'tis but to doom 

The loved to pass away; 
And not in earth's dark walk is given 
The high, unfading joys of heaven. 



ON THE DEATH OF A LITTLE GIRL 

Ere from the brow its childish grace, 

Or from the lips the tone 
That told of childhood's sinless days 

In melody had flown ; 
The heart in darkness weeps alone, 

Her gentle presence fled, 
Her spirit with th' Eternal One, 

Her beauty with the dead. 

Aye, leave the soft light on the brow, 

Stir not one fallen tress, 
For death's cold hand hath hallowed now 

Each line of loveliness ; 
And let the silken lashes press 

Thus lightly o'er her eyes, 
As like a thing of holiness 

All beautiful she lies. 

Aye, leave her to her holy rest, 
Amid her own loved flowers, 

And be the quiet of her breast 
As healing peace to ours. 

178 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



As earth returns to summer showers 

The treasures of its trust, 
Shall Heaven restore in holier hours 

Our loved ones from the dust. 
1845 

TO A PINY-WOODS GIRL 

A child of earth with Heaven's own beauty warm 
A mortal melting to a Seraph form. 

I have looked into thine earnest eyes, 

Thou fair and sinless child, 
And many darker memories 

Their beauty hath beguiled. 
I have looked into thy gentle eyes — 

My soul hath drunk their light, 
And many treasured thoughts arise 

Around my heart to-night. 

I have looked into thine azure eyes 

As the soul might look to Heaven 
When to the troubled bosom flies 

The hope to be forgiven. 
I have looked into thy gentle eyes 

As the lone heart looks above, 
Seeking beyond the happy skies 

The treasures of its love. 

I have looked into thy beaming eyes, 

I had dreamed the world all cold, 
And 'mid its sweetest mysteries 

My heart was growing old: 
I have looked into thine earnest eyes 

And my heart this lesson hath, 
How much of holy beauty lies 

Around our daily path. 
1845 179 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



TO 



'Not in those visions to the heart displaying 
Forms which it sighs, but to have only dreamed, 
Hath aught like Thee, in truth or fancy seemed." 



The visions of the painter's heart 

His pencil may express — 
The sculptor's bright conceptions start 

To life and loveliness. 
Rich language to the soul hath brought 

Full many a gentle word 
To wing with life the lightest thought 

By which its depths are stirred ; 
But not a language, or the tone 

That gentle music brings, 
Not all that breathes in sculptured stone 

Or from the pencil springs — 
Not all the dreams that people earth 

With beings bright and fair 
Can aid the heart to body forth 

Thine image glowing there. 

Tis when the soul forgets its tears, 

Its path of toil and pain, 
And travels back through weary years 

To be a child again; — 
'Tis when the cheek its early glow 

Of sinless beauty wears 
And angel forms might bless a brow 

As beautiful as theirs ; — 
'Tis when o'er childhood's slumbers deep 

The dreams of Heaven descend, 
And seraph forms that hallow sleep 

With earthly visions blend: — 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



'Tis then the soul may tell the might 
To thy sweet presence given, 

Where earth but wreathes with lovelier 
light 
The loveliest gifts of Heaven. 



May 10, 1845 



TO MISS MARY HUNT 

What constitutes a handsome face? 

The secret would you know 
That gives the brow its softest grace, 

The cheek its purest glow? 

'Tis not the eye of liquid light, 

The timid or the bold, 
The winter's ice may be more bright 

And yet not half so cold. 

'Tis not the hair like raven's plume, 

With gems amid its jet; 
The midnight hath a richer gloom 

With brighter jewels set. 

'Tis not the lip, so fresh and full 

With life's own rosy hue ; 
The bud may be more beautiful 

And far more fragrant too. 

'Tis not the voice, whose music brings 
A brighter charm than all, 

For echo's voice as sweetly rings 
Through some deserted hall. 

181 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The seraph smile of sweet content, 
The sunshine of the soul, — 

This is the charm most eloquent 
That beautifies the whole. 

And when its winning graces cling 
To such a brow as thine, 

Each sorrow is a sacred thing, 
Each smile indeed divine. 

i845 



TO 



When twilight tints with changing hue 

The gathered clouds of even, 
And pours its flood of purple through 

The golden gates of Heaven ; 
When winds are hushed and waves are stilled 

And fancy wanders free, 
My heart, my thoughts, unchanged, unchilled, 

Would fly afar to thee. 

The world may win that heart awhile, 

Those thoughts may turn away, 
Lured by the light of glory's smile 

Or pleasure's fitful ray; 
But still though all the scenes they gild 

Be fair and bright to me, 
My heart, my thoughts, unchanged, unchilled, 

Shall fly afar to thee. 

And disappointment's hand may steal 

Her rosy wreath from mirth, 
And I, as all who live, may feel 

The weariness of earth; 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



But still, tho' hope may cease to build 

With beams of memory, 
My heart, my thoughts, unchanged, unchilled, 

Shall fly afar to thee. 

Shell Creek, 1845 



TO THE TALLAPOOSA RIVER 

River, sweet River, with thy path of light, 

And glittering treasures for the sea, 
Exulting ever in thy mountain might 

Of gathered waters, fetterless and free ; 

Well may the lone heart love to muse by thee, 
To mark thy beauties varying as they rise, 

To fix thine image in the heart, to be 
In stranger lands and 'neath far distant skies 
The peerless star of peace and brightest memories. 

The rock that saw thy wave to beauty start, 
A silver streamlet from the mountain's crest, 

And the sweet valley where e'en now my heart 
Looks out upon thy cradled water's rest — 
These have thy smiles of changing beauty blest, 

And these with all that gathers to thy side 
To gaze into the depths of thy bright breast, 

Returns that blessing to thy rolling tide 

In every form and hue of beauty mingling wide. 

River, wild River, thy waves are at play, 

Rolling forever away, away, 

'Mid the gloom of the forest, the frown of the hills, 

Or flashing in sunlight, beautiful still, 

The eagle looks down from his nest on high, 

And the wild deer greets thee with fearless eye, 

For they love, wild River, to linger by thee, 

As thou rollest forever from mountain to sea. 

183 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



River, lone River, nations have sprung; 
Along thy wild borders the war cry has rung; 
And nations have passed from thy blooming side, 
As the light foam flashing along thy tide ; 
They have passed away from their native shore, 
And thy waters, lone River, shall know them no 

more. 
But thou are unchanged, still lonely and free, 
Rolling forever from mountain to sea. 

River, strong River, nations shall come 
And mark thy green banks for the strangers' 

home; 
Their stately buildings shall spring in pride, 
Their voices shall echo along thy side, 
They will fetter the strength of thy rolling waves, 
But thy waters shall dimple around their graves, 
As they fall like the leaves from the autumn tree, 
And thou rollest forever from mountain to sea. 

River, sweet River, when hope shall decay, 
When Life's fairest visions shall pass away, 
When the freshness of spirit is faded and gone, 
When the heart through the world must wander 

alone, 
Thy memory back to my soul shall bring 
The brightness and freshness of Life's young 

spring, 
And waters of healing thy waves shall be 
As thou rollest, sweet River, from mountain to 

sea. 

River, bold River, the rock is thy birth, 
Thy mission a blessing to blossoming earth ; 
The cataract's dash with its glittering spray 
And the glance of the rapid, thy giant play; 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The lakelet's repose, with its shadowy breast 
In its calmness and beauty, thy cradled rest, 
With a pathway of glory, an anthem of glee, 
Thou rollest forever from mountain to sea. 



1844 



CHEROKEE BLUFF 



The rock that beetling from thy bosom bears 
The last red light of Heaven upon its brow 

And wreathes the ivy's verdant growth of years 
Around its rugged front is lovely now, 

Tinged with the parting twilight's purple glow; 

The river monarch, in rich robes arrayed, 
Gazing upon the azure tide below ; 

And silver wavelets, their last homage paid, 

Sink at his feet to rest, yet murmuring half afraid. 

And legend links with yonder dizzy height 

A tale of terror of the olden days ; 
There where the eagle pauses from his flight, 
And where the mountain goat might scarcely 
graze, 
A band had gathered, as tradition says, 
In battle vanquished, by their foemen pressed ; 
There with their dark eyes flashing glorious 
rays, 
Each mantle rent, and soiled each stately crest, 
They stood with burning thoughts, yet stern and 
stirless breast. 

What hope for them ! 'Twere all in vain to yield, 
The stake's the mercy that the victor shows ; 

Before them lay their last dread battle-field, 
Around, in front, in narrowing circle, close 

185 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The vengeful faces of outnumbering foes ; 
Behind, in mighty masses of bleak stone 

Barring all flight, the precipice arose — 
There came a shout — ere echo caught the tone, 
A rush, a gurgling cry — and the brave band was 



gone! 



1845 



A LOCK OF INDIAN HAIR 

I have cherished it long, I would keep it still 
Close to my heart, till my heart grew chill — 
I have worn it there through weariest years, 
'Tis damp with a warrior's only tears 
As he wept for the beauty so pure and mild 
That passed from his path with his lovely child. 

I have seen it wave to the soft wind's play 
When she came to meet me at close of day — 
When her light step sprang to the glad surprise, 
And the clear light glistened within her eyes, 
And the broad woods rang with the glee they 

heard 
When my old arms circled my fairest bird. 

I have smoothed it oft when she sank to rest 
With her soft cheek pillowed upon my breast, 
When her heart beat calm in its peaceful tide, 
And her breath came warm to this withered side, 
And a dream smile came in its spirit glow 
As I stirred the dark tress from her pure young 
brow. 

And I saw it again when her soul had fled, 
And damply it clung to the brow of the dead — 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The light from her radiant eyes was gone, 

And her cheek was chill as the mountain storm ; 

I severed it then, for I could not bear 

That all of my bright one should perish there. 

Take it, pale stranger, I go afar — 
My guide is the light of the western star ; 
But guard this tress as a sacred trust — 
A holy link to the holiest dust — 
And ere the bright years of thy life shall wane 
She will claim the dark braid of her childhood 
again. 
September 29, 1844 



SKETCHES WITH A PINE STRAW 

"Writ on Sande" 

No. II 

THE ROSE- VINE IN THE CHURCH 

WINDOW 

Come in, oh, lovely rose, 

Come with thy bending crest. 

Type of the branch of peace that grows 
Among the blest. 

Come with thy balmy breath, 

Thine incense of perfume. 
Come with thy green and sunny wreath 

Of summer bloom. 

Tell of thy lowly birth, 
The soft and dallying air; 

Tell of the kindly gifts of earth, 
Heaven's holy care. 

187 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Tell of the wild bird's call 

At morning by thy side ; 
Tell of the gentle dews that fall 

At even-tide. 

Whisper of all things fair, 

Thine own unclouded days, 
Tell of thy Spirit's voiceless prayer 

Thy silent praise. 

Though not one murmured word 

May from thy bosom steal, 
Save when thy bending leaves are stirred 

By organ's peal. 

Still in thy verdure bright 

Come with thy soft repose 
And still the heart shall bless thy light, 

Oh, lovely rose ! 



SONG 



Written at midnight, when "a nightmare visited me, and 
among many other fantastic tricks which it instituted for 
my annoyance it sang me the following song" : 

Oh ! what is Earth ! A "table d'hote" 

With viands plain or rare, 
That finds for every different throat 

A different "bill of fare." 

What's Life? "A chicken pie," (I trust 

My muse the figure owns,) 
Where many seek the "upper crust" 

And all must "crack the bones." 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And what is Fame ? An empty "puff" 

A "trifle," light as air, 
And they are last to cry "enough," 

Who get the largest share. 

And what is Love ? A "pudding's" smile 
Where different spices woo, 

But "heart burn" lingers in its wile 
And indigestion too. 

And what is Knowledge ? "Turtle soup" 
Where "calves' heads" often swim, 

Where some in deepest darkness grope, 
And some the surface skim. 

And what is Friendship ? "Punch," whose 
sweet 

Must with its sour combine 
To make, or as we part or meet, 

A "nectar" most divine. 

And what is Death ? Alas ! The "bill," 
Which all who eat must pay, 

And tho' at best a "bitter pill" 
It wipes all scores away. 

And what are all, when numbered up, 

For which we seek or sigh ? 
A "toast" above a "stirrup cup," 

"Eat, drink, for soon ye die." 

March 14, 1845 



189 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



TO HIS HORSE* 

Who carries me, from day to day, 
So kind, so gentle and so gay, 
Who never kicks or runs "avay" ? 

My Kitty. 

Who's slender, strong, and thorough-bred, 
With Iris' neck and Psyche's head, 
With Venus' eye, and Juno's tread? 

My Kitty. 

Who trots, or paces, lopes or walks, 
And dances too, but never balks, 
Who often thinks and almost talks ? 

My Kitty. 

Who when the bridge was old and weak, 
Went charging over "like a streak" 
And left I rolling in the creek? 

My Kitty. 

Who, when at last she's dead and gone, 
Shall have a monumental stone 
With this here epitaph thereon? 

My Kitty. 

Here Kitty lies ! Death claimed his prey 
And Kitty could not answer "neigh" — 
Woe worth the case, woe worth the day 
That cost thy life, my gallant Bay. 

My Kitty ! 

*A note on third stanza runs to this effect : 
* * * * I know she thinks 
She looks so wery vicked ven she vinks." 

190 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

INSCRIPTION 
In the scrap-book of Mrs. E. P. Carter 

The pencil lingers o'er a page so white ! 
Falters the chisel when the hand would smite 
Even for beauty, in the block so bright. 

The hand may mold ; the marble does its part 
Clad in the whiteness, lo ! enkindled Art 
Finds a new beauty nestling at her heart. 

Soft be the touch upon this tablet's snow 
Around whose verge the violet shall blow, 
And Love keep vigil while the lilies grow. 



ILLUMINATING LETTERS 

To Mrs. Evelyn Page Carter 

She wrought : and at her reverent touch, 
That lingered long in loving much, 

As to the sunlight and the dew 

The tendril twined, the floweret grew, 

Till burned around each holy name 
A brightness as of altar flame ; 

Anthem and incense in each word 
That bore the blossom or the bird ; 

193 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Each letter's self a shrine, where art 
Uttered the worship of the heart. 

And still she wrought; and still her touch, 
That lingered long in loving much, 

Recalled their task in that old time 
Who saw the slow cathedral climb, 

Grand with the prayers of many days, 
And glowing in its orb of praise ; 

Unfolding, as it neared the skies, 
A passion-flower of centuries; 

Rich in all grace that love alone 

The taught of Heaven can teach to stone. 

Such love as waits the dawn, and gave 
The watch at midnight to His grave, 

Steadfast and tireless, till the hour 
Unveils the temple's perfect flower, 

"Christ!" May He wreathe, as these are 

wrought, 
Our lives with grace of deed and thought ! 



WOMAN 



Written for an address before the Medical Society of 
ye State of Georgia. 

Wife ! Mother ! Sister ! and what sweeter name 
For lovelier spirit in a lovelier frame? 
For her whose virtues might redeem the curse 
That came through Adam on the universe ? 

194 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



At her fond touch what fiend of torment flies ! 
At her sweet smile what angel hopes arise 
Brighter than aught this arid world has given 
Since Jacob's dream climbed blossoming to 
Heaven ! 

Trained in her school let tempered art confess 
The might of love, the power of gentleness 
To baffle death, or bid the dying eyes 
Kindle at last with light from Paradise. 



A FRAGMENT 



From the poem to William Peabody on his great dona- 
tions to the schools. 



Millions of peace ! and its mission was done ! 
And the dazzle shall cease from the sky with the 
sun! 



We have hymns at our home, we have taught them 

to bear 
On their tremulous pinions the weight of a prayer ! 

God bless the great gift! God bless the great 

giver ! 
With love like a sea, with peace like a river. 



195 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



TO OUR VENERATED FRIEND OF THE 
"CORNER STONE" 

General James Bethune, by a venerable Contemporary 

And so his locks are frosty ! 

His beard is long and white ! 
What matter so the soul be green, 

And so the heart be bright ? 
One leg will do to stand upon 

When standing for the right. 

W T hy look with utter darkness on 

The ever-opening skies ? 
With heavy feet, why go to meet 

Our lost one's loving eyes? 
Why lay a withered heart before 

The gates of Paradise ? 

A wilderness, without a spot 
Where bubbling water flows, 

A desert waste that hath forgot 
All fragrance of the rose, 

Is his, whose pathway brightens not 
Toward his journey's close. 



THE FLOWERS 

To Mrs. E. P. N. Carter 

A blessing on the broad, bright lands 
Whose children come to ours, 

And lead us with their fragrant hands 
Around the world of flowers. 

196 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



No dust upon the sandalled feet, 

As they who go to find, 
In other lands, a flower as sweet 

As one they left behind. 

With them our thoughts all journeys take, 

With them our fancies roam, 
And ever when we will, we wake 

And find ourselves at home. 

They wake for us the breath and bloom, 

Where soft Circassia smiles ; 
They veil beneath their tender bloom 

The maidens of the isles. 

They bid the green oasis creep 

Around the desert wells ; 
They sound on many a cedared steep 

The sweet pagoda bells. 

All times and climes they journey through, 

Until their pathway lies, 
Beyond the gates of morning, to 

The walks of Paradise. 

And many an angel of the earth 
Their upward path hath trod, 

Gone from our garden gateways, forth 
Into the arms of God. 



197 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



"FELIX" 

There is an ancient moral 

Whose pith I thus convey, — 

Who slumbers on his laurel 
Was vanquished yesterday. 

Though greener fields may brighten 
Than yet the sun hath known ; 

Though whiter harvests whiten 
Than ever seed were sown ; 

Above the breast of summer 
The thunder-bolt may burst; 

And around the sheaves of harvest 
The winter gales are nursed. 

Life's loftiest triumph trembles 
Beneath the lightest march, — 

Till Death, that carves the keystone, 
Writes Felix on the arch. 



THE BROWN BRIDGE 

The brown bridge spans the streamlet and 
The evergreens from hand to hand 
Arch the roadway's snow-white sand. 

A picture! and I loved the same 
Till Annie there to meet me came, 
And turned my picture to a frame ! 

An oval, such as might entwine 
The mild Madonna of a shrine 
From some old master's hand divine. 

198 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And ever since, in passing there, 

The same sweet phantom haunts the air 

With azure eyes and golden hair. 

Grow on, ye evergreens, and throw 
Soft shadows on the dust below ! 
And ye dark waters murmUr low 

Of other streams, not dark or wide, 
So Annie with the grace that died 
Shall meet me on the other side. 



'THE EXACT SITUATION" 

A hunter, with the luck to roam 
Too near the "Ingen nation," 

Returned to find his happy home 
A hopeless desolation. 

His buildings burned, his people slain, 

His fields in dire disorder ; 
His spoons, his cattle and his grain — 
His long life's labor and its gain — 

Dispersed with the marauder. 

He stood appalled ! A granite-stone 
Hath greater power to "cuss" ! 

And when he spoke, 'twas only, "John, 
It's too — Ridiculous" ! 

Poor Dixie hath reserved her wrath 

In speechless speculation. 
Such mean, malicious mischief hath 

"Fatigued her indignation."* 

♦General Toombs 
199 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE BOWIE KNIFE 

"A war of artillery." — McClellan 

Hardly at rifle range, 

Of half a league or so, 
Was the battle wrought by the brave who fought 

Up in New Mexico, — 
Was the bloody work at Albuquerque, 

Up in New Mexico. 

The carbines sputtered once, 

And the carbines stood at ease, 
Watching the strife, of the Bowie knife, 

With the mad, black batteries, — 
The bomb's flash to the battle crash 

Of the bellowing batteries. 

Up to the crater's rim 
Into the cannon's breath, 
Silently, with the grim, 
Blue blade of utter death, — 
With the terrible light of the bare and bright 
Blue blade of utter death. 

Up from the sulphur mist, 

Out from the crater's flame, 
From the lion's lair, to the light and air 

Of everlasting fame, — 
To the mountain height, to the morning light, 

Of everlasting fame ! 

Laurels for all who dare: 
Laurels of greenest life, 
For the brave to win and wear 
With the terrible Bowie knife; — 
In freedom's fight, with the deadly might 
Of the terrible Bowie knife ! 
April i, 1862 200 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



CARRIER'S ADDRESS 
To the patrons and friends of the Columbus Enquirer 

Wanted — A Christmas carol, 
For Christian souls to sing; 

Short, sweet, with a Godly moral, 
Bright as a humming-bird's wing. 

To sing by the bier of the dead "old year," 
While the New Year's birth we wait; 

With a bright career for your carrier, 
In eighteen sixty-eight. 

Lessons of deepest sorrow 

Little our poet lacks ; 
Four years of a war's black horror, 

Two of a "cotton tax" ! 

Enough ! from the rhymer's quiver 

This moral at once climbs o'er — 
"Charity," now or never! 

Now "Honest" or — nevermore! 

Stand fast by the cloudless splendor 
Of your father's ancient fame ! 

Sons of the true and tender, 
Heirs of the Saxon name ! 

We can die! but we cannot surrender 
One ray of that ancient fame ! 

Was it dark on the hills of Judah ? 

Was it bleak where the shadows fell 
On the stable, the stall, the manger, 

The couch of Emmanuel? 
Is your cradle of sorrow ruder 

Than any in Israel? — 

201 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Than theirs by the rushing Tiber ? 

Than his in old Egypt's reeds ? — 
In hardness, only and ever, 

The sinew of empire breeds; 
This stands in the world forever, 

The first and the last of the creeds ! 

Stand fast by the cloudless splendor 
Of your fathers' faith and fame ! 

Walk still with the true and tender 
Of the Anglo-Saxon name. 

And truth shall arise and render 
Her wreath, at last, to your claim. 

Though the darkness of desolation 

Comes close to each home and heart, 
Though the "Raven" retains his station, 

And his shadow will not depart — 
His burthen of life is lightest 

Who stoutly accepts the past, 
Yet lives in the hopes of the brightest, 

And "works" for the best till the last ! 

In the which hope, (as Shakespeare 
Says in his cunningest play) 

We wish you as happy a New Year 
As you make our Christmas to-day. 

1868 



HIS STYLE 



Rather obscure ! a failing sure 
To follow life's observation! 

Survey it all, and your thoughts shall fall 
In the strangest concatenation. 



202 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



At dawn a glimpse of the shining fields, 

At even the day's disaster — 
And the verdure fails and the sunlight yields 

To the tempest that tramples faster. 

Your thoughts are a wreath of the rosiest girls ! 

Your lyrics their rippling laughter ! 
Radiant ! never a shrouded tear, 

Nor a moan, nor a silence after. 

Shine on ! and suffer his style grow dim — 

"Quaint," as you kindly rank it, 
Who sings to the shadows that sit with him 

In pearls at his vesper banquet. 

Nor a skeleton feast, in the dreamy mist, 
Where he gathers his broken splendor, 

There is bread, I wis, and wine to kiss 
To memories shy and tender. 

A little dark ! let the smile shine through 

His tears by the solemn river; 
Like the light that summons a drop of dew 

To shine with the stars forever. 



HANCOCK 
(a fragment) 



It may have been observed that the first and by far the 
boldest signature to the Declaration of Independence is 
that of Hancock. 

Bold and bright in the dawning light 

Of freedom's declaration ! 
Brightest yet when the sun hath set 

On Freedom's desolation ! 
203 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



As the starry-souled of the great of old, 

Dead in their generation, 
Arose to shine o'er the land's decline, 

In Heaven a constellation ! 



POOR TOM 

"A' COLD" 
True, Oh! King! 



Years of his freedom — two ! 

And a shivering phantom stands, 
With the firelight flickering through 

His gaunt and wasted hands. 
"Home" — and he bowed his head 

With a low and wailing cry; 
Ah ! not for shelter, and not for bread, 

Only a place to — die. 

To die at the master's feet, 

Out of the scourging storm, 
Where the winds might never beat, 

Where Tom lay ever warm ; 
Till Freedom the pitiless 

Fell from th' eternal sky, 
And the bitterness of his nakedness 

Made Tom so glad to — die. 

Oh ! had these arms the pith 

Of just two years ago ! 
Wrecked in the wrestle with 

Yon wilderness of woe ! 



204 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Tom's love would bring the light 

Back to the master's eye — 
But the blood in his heart is cold to-night, 

And he only comes to — die ! 

Was it ever so many years, 

Or only yesterday, 
That master, among the peers, 

Went bravest with Tom the gay ? 
Before the "locust" and "hail," 

Or only an hour gone by, 
That freedom fell with a flail 

On Tom, and made him die. 

Of the dear old days so sweet 

Does master dream as he sits, 
Till the weariness of his feet 

Seems wandering in his wits ; 
Till yesterday seemed so dim, 

And the far away so nigh, 
That his head goes all a-swim, 

And his heart is fain to die ! 

Poor Tom! For a hundred years 

Your blood has coursed by mine ; 
Were there warmth in bitter tears, 

There should not lack the brine. 
Dying ! I know it well, 

As I know the signs on high, , 

The tokens that grimly tell 
Out of the storm 'twere well, 

Both of us, Tom, to die. 

December, 1867 



205 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE CONSTITUTION 
"Le Roi Est Mort!" 

"Awake the King !" the warder said ; 
"The night is passed, the tempest fled. 
Awake the King; the world would shine 
Once more beneath his eyes benign. 

"The storm that rocked our castle's base 
Brought heavy slumber to his Grace, 
And light and peace and laughing skies 
Shall wake him" — when the dead arise. 

Ah ! deadlier than the tempest's peal, 
In coward hands the traitor steel ! 
The Lord's anointed they that cried 
"All hail !" have smitten, that he died. 

They drank his cup, they brake his bread, 
And in his slumber smote him dead, — 
His loyal lords ! — to bear through time 
The crimson of that banner crime ! 

On him all sacred seals were set; 

In him all power and mercy met ; 

Dead ! and what kings shall rise and reign 

Ere we behold his like again ! 



THE HIELAND LASS AT LUCKNOW 
"Dinna ye hear the pibroch?" 

Not alone, not alone, upon Lucknow's moan 
The midnight of blackness fell ; 

Not alone, not alone, by her shattered stone 
Stood Sorrow, the sentinel. 

206 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Not a heart but beat to her watcher's feet, 

Under that awful sky, 
And ne'er a hearth on the darkened earth 

But blazed at the slogan's cry. 

For the Campbells came like the rush of flame, 

With that clamor so wild and high, 
That its clarion breath in the ears of Death 

Might have trembled with victory. 
Here's a brimming can to the Highland-man, 

And the Bengal bolt he hurled ! 
Here's a brimming glass to the Hieland lass 

Who echoed it round the world ! 



"HONOR THE BRAVE" 

Up in the Indian hills 

Of the Cutchee tribe 'tis said 
That when a chieftain dies 

They bind his wrists with thread 
Blue for the very brave; 

But for the bravest red. 

One time in Indian wars 

A squad of Englishmen 
Charged sixty Cutcheears 

So valiantly that, when 
The fight was done, of ten, not one 

Ever came back again. 

Long after, when the winds 
Their skeletons had kissed, 

A squad of Englishmen 

Looked up their missing list, 

207 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And found them dead, with each a thread 
Of scarlet on his wrist. 

Should "North" require a sign 

In honor of her dead 
Who bravely stayed behind 

When all the others fled, — 
We can supply the proper dye 

And "throw her in the thread." 



TO CONGRESS 
The Memorial of Thomas Grubb 

Lords of this United Nation, 
Hear the earnest supplication 
Of your very humble sub- 
scriber, starving Thomas Grubb ! 

Tax this cotton ! Tax it high, 

Tax it dead, before we die ! 

Tax the planter, tax the land, 

Overseer and the hand ; 

Screw and gin-house, gin and band ! 

Tax the mule and tax the plow, 
Everywhere and any-how ! 
Tax it top, and tax it tap, 
Upper, middle, bottom crap ! 

Tax the lint and tax the seed, 

Tax the universal weed! 

Tax the very bumble-bees 

In the blossoms; tax 'em, please! 

208 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Lay a double premium 

On the boll-and-army-"wum !" 

And a double bounty set 

On rust and rot and drouth and wet. 

Tax it ! Tax it ! don't relax it — 

Chain it, stamp it, d n it, tax it ! 

Tax it deaf and dumb and blind — 
Out of sight and out of mind ! 

Then the South shall shine again 
With her grain and grasses ! — then 
For your grandeurs, night and day, 
Vonr netitinner shall orav. 



January i, i< 



ror your granueurs, mgu 
Your petitioner shall pray. 



THE GUNBOAT 



Build the gunboat! Let her be 
Georgia's symbol on the sea ! 

Georgia's daughter, fair and free, 
Sword and shield of liberty. 

Swift destruction at her keel ; 

Triumph in her battle-peal ; 
Heart of oak, and ribs of steel ; 

Honor helmsman at her wheel. 

Build the gunboat! Georgia craves 
Memorial for her fallen braves ; 

A monument for many graves — 
Give the gunboat to the waves. 

They shall rise and fight anew, 
The dead among the living crew ! 

Let our gunboat breast the blue, 
A fortress and a temple too ! 
209 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



MSOV AGAIN 

A parable to prove it true, 
Old wisdom is as good as new. 

A Lamb one morning, on the brink 
Of a brooklet, stooped to drink. 

A Wolf, above, on mutton bent, 
Assailed that hapless innocent. 

"Vilest of varlets, dare you dream, 
The while I drink, to rile the stream ?" 

Quoth Lamb, "How can I rile it, till 
The stream you mention runs up hill?" 

"Ha, caitiff! by your speech I know 
You bit my father years ago!" 

"How could I bite him ?" Lamb replied, 
"Ere I was born your father died." 

"Base miscreant ! you mean I lie ! 
Now one or both of us must die !" 

The Lambkin died, no doubt, but I've 
A "notion" that the Wolf's alive ! 

And Logic, with a Lamb in sight, 
Doth not impair his appetite. 



210 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



BABY'S POEM 

Evelyn Page Carter 

I wonder where the fairies get 
All those pretty things, my pet, 
In pink, and pearl, and violet ! 

Coming like the honey-bees, 
Bringing from the summer seas 
The coral and the spiceries ! 

Out of what peculiar clay 
Do they dig these dimples, say ! 
Dig more dimples in a day 
Than a week could kiss away. 

That must be a distaff rare 
That can spin this sort of hair, 
Sun-lit silk and— none to spare ! 

What old dainty brownie in 
Her benevolence has been 
"Illuminating" baby's skin 

With these veinlets like a vine, 
Traced in violet of wine 
On vellum of a nectarine? 

Bless you, Brownie ! never let 
Your cradle-charities upset — 
There are "orders" for you yet ! 

"Eyes like these '.—and lips like those !- 
A little straighter in the nose!— 
Less of pink and more of rose !" 
211 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Time to stop him ! — here's a quiz, 
Thinks he's wiser than he is, 
Teaching fairyland its "biz" ! 



"DIOGENES" 

With a New Light 

He may have been a worthy wight 
Who mocked the sun with candle-light, 

As seeking in that foolish way, 
An honest man in open day; 

But who has heard of one of these 
Revealed unto Diogenes? 

I think his lanthorn lacked alone 
Some honest motions of his own ! 

The man with little love shall find 
But little loving in mankind ! 

And one of feeble honor can 
By no means find an honest man ! 

To win the Indies' wealth, lay out 
The Indies' worth, or thereabout. 



212 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



AGONISTES 

Between the pillars let him stand ! 
The tireless eyes, the fettered hand, 
The Lion-Fox that vexed the land ! 

By Baal ! but the sport was rare 
To take the cunning in our snare, 
The Lion, by his yellow hair ! 

The world grows weary of the jest, 
And there are shadows in the west ; 
Between the pillars let him rest ! 

Perhaps to dream, as captives will, 
That on Philistia's sacred hill 
His feet of triumph trample still. 

To-morrow, — be the darkness short ! — 
Refreshed in rage, our gentle court 
Shall bait the Titan for our sport ! 

So peace, from pinnacle to porch, 
With naked bone or blazing torch 
Never more to smite or scorch ! 

And there was peace ; and we have read 
The simple prayer the captive said, 
The blind man as he bowed his head ; 

And when the voice of other wail 
Is still in story, let the tale 
Of Agonistes turn us pale. 



213 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



'BARRY" OF SAINT BERNARD 

Twelve thousand feet straight up the sky ! 

Six thousand years of sleet ! 
Strange eyrie of humanity, 

With Europe at its feet ! 

How many a year the glacier, 

Slow gliding, shall not tell, 
Since storms that launch the avalanche 

Have shouted as it fell. 
Their records rest in cloven crest 

And splintered pinnacle. 

How many years, in deadliest wrath 

Of Roman and of Frank, 
The red high-tide of murder hath 

Smitten this mountain's flank! 

And this poor dog, his kennel ice, 

Ringed by the double strife, 
In his sublime self-sacrifice 

Stands staunch for human life ! 

Lead out your kings ! an even start 

For Glory's last reward ! 
Your Hannibal, your Bonaparte, 

Your Caesar, evil-starred, 
And here's my "vote," with all my heart, 

For "Barry" of Bernard. 

Climb the fierce legions as of old 
Storm swept and battle riven ! 
And as the foremost hearts fall cold 
The Alps, by all their height, uphold 
A dog the nearest Heaven ! 

214 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



FABLE 

Not in iEsop 

Twin Buckets there lived in a well. 
This is their parable. 

Said the one, as he downward went, 
With a rattle of discontent : 

"What folly! drawn full to the top, 
Returning with never a drop." 

Quoth his mate, coming skyward, "Why, nay ! 
I see it another way. 

"However thirsty we sink, 
We rise with a plenty to drink !" 

Life's tapestry's woven so that it 
Shines just as you choose to look at it, 

And responds, as your wisdom hath struck it, 
Like a full or an empty bucket ! 



THE SPHINX 

The Sphinx by the desert stands, 

Lord of the lonely lands, 

With the dust of the desert sands 

On its head, and its heart, and its hands. 

Ages before the flood, 

Ere the delta grew out of the mud, 

Up to its knees it stood 

In a deluge of tears and blood ! 

215 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The desert was out of sight 

When the creature was dragged to light, 

Out of the caves of night, 

And the desert was puzzled quite. 

'Twas a riddle they used to tell 
At the digging of Joseph's well, 
Ere the scourge of the Pharaohs fell 
On the shoulders of Israel ! 

And there's never a star that winks 

On Africa as it sinks 

But wonders whenever it thinks 

Of the world and its wonderful sphinx. 

And there's nothing by land or sea 
Can ever expect to be 
Such an ugly old puzzle as he 
Except old Tyranny. 

A riddle to rest unread 
Till the Pharaohs are dead, 
Till the people shall toil for bread, 
And not for a stone instead. 



MAY QUEEN 
To Queen Victoria 

HERALD 

A Queen elect! and Loyalty again 
Wakes like a blossom to the summer rain ! 
Defiled how long! in dust and darkness hid; 
As dead as Cheops in his pyramid ! 
216 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Kings in their time and demagogues to-day, 
Baser than swine, have cast that pearl away! 
Yet Spring returns, and Loyalty again 
Feels the old rapture kindling in each vein; 
Biding its time, as Heaven ordains the hours, 
It waits to crown the worthiest with flowers. 

CROWN 

Queen of a proud and immemorial line, 
Upon thy head what sacred dews should shine ! 
Heir to long annals where no stain appears, 
The thousandth rosebud of a thousand years ! 
With this fair Crown what fragrant memories shed 
The bloom and balm of ages on thy head ! 

SCEPTRE 

A thornless Crown ! a Sceptre without stain ! 

Peace in thy path and honor in thy train ! 

So rule thy realm that when these wreaths decay 

And the poor robes of office pass away 

Thy brow may bear more brightly than to-day 

A Crown with Christ in Heaven's eternal May. 

QUEEN 

Amen ! and Heaven support me too ! 

'Tis much we mighty people must go through! 

In mine exchequer not a sovran cent — 

As poor in purse as a church-mouse in Lent ; 

Not a bright bayonet to back my will, 

Not one black bomb to whistle "Love me still" ! 

I couldn't tax you were I so inclined ; 

Not even hang you if I had a mind. 

217 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



I know no art in politics to shine, 

To prove black "white," and all your nice things 

mine! 
What shall I do to keep your minds in awe ? 
Where shall I seek a substitute for law? 

Queens there have been — and oh, what blood and 

tears 
Bear their pale memories down the tide of years ! 
And Kings, how many ! duly born to rule, 
And duly dead, epitomized "a fool !" 
Kind spirits, guide me for mine empire's ease, 
Nor let me live or die like one of these. 
Sweet Sisters, help me, as such sisters can, 
To try hard loving for my regal plan, 
And if we fail, then count me crowned to-day 
The most uphappy of the Queens of May; 

MAIDS 

SPRING 

Love tarries for love ! Lo ! the chrysalis' wing 
And the bloom in the bud, how they welcome the 
Spring ! 

SUMMER 

Love kindles to love ! Lo ! the birds and the flowers 
That blossom and sing to my sun and my showers ! 

AUTUMN 

Love ripens to love ! Lo ! my touches unfold 
From the heart of the rlowret the harvest of gold ! 

WINTER 

Let the Summer decay, and the Autumn expire ! 
Lo ! Love at the hearth is a log on the fire ! 

218 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



CHORUS 

Rule by love ! and round the year 
Flowers shall follow thee as here. 
Spring with wreaths and incense rare- 
Summer with her robes so fair — 
Autumn with his golden store — 
Winter, kindliest at core — 
More than these shall bless thy sway, 
Happy Queen of more than May ! 



MODERN MINSTRELSY 

Inscribed to Miss S. R. B. 

The lute and lance of the old Romance 
Are dead an age before us ; 

The lute is dust, the lance is rust, 
And neither now can bore us. 

And never more shall troubadour 
His knightly lays be singing, 

For lance and lute alike are mute 
Before the rifles ringing. 

While brassy throats with iron notes 
Their compliments are flinging, 

A rifle gun does up in one 
Our fighting and our singing. 



219 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



SHOVEL AND TONGS 

Here's a war that comes nigh to you, neighbor, 

Comes nigh to you, person and pelf, 
To crook your old scythe to a sabre, 

And also to straighten yourself. 
A war where the right is to settle 

The score of a century's wrongs, 
For the women, if we lack the metal, 

To win, with their — shovel and tongs ! 

Yes, women ! from Jephtha's fair daughter, 

To her of the hammer and nail, 
Instructed in love and in slaughter, 

To finish and never to fail. 
Here's a chance for a hero to render 

His valor a theme for our songs, 
To fight till the women surrender, 
While a fireside needs a de-fender, 

Or furnishes shovel and tongs. 



TO DR. HOLLAND, ON READING 
"KATHRINA" 

God's tender gospel ! Lacks it still 
Memorial ? Lo ! a miracle ! 

New England blossoms ! far hath come 
The wafture of that rare perfume — 

Right under Edward's heels ! a man 
And very brother ! — Jonathan ! 

220 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Who clasped all virtues in a — vice ; 
Whose hate was flame, whose love was ice, 
Whose whole evangel — sacrifice! 

Who blamed high Heaven, the good-dis- 
penser, 
And hell, as quite too small a censer 

For him to swing! the (self-) "elect," 
High-priest — head-devil of his sect, 

How many tortured souls to-day, 
Flayed through the fire, to Baal say : 

Pass, brimstone ! and Kathrina rise, 
Christ's pitying mercy in thine eyes. 

Cool, cauldron ! let the blasted heath 
Taste of the summer in her breath ! 

Vanish the witches! Night, unbar 
Before these feet whose shinings are 
At once of lily and of star. 

Only tried manhood may express 
True woman's tireless tenderness ; 

And had these wishes wings of flight 
Beyond this wizard-haunted night, 

In blessings on the tried and true, 
Dear Doctor, they should "light on you." 



221 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



OLD BRASS 
To the women who melted fenders, etc., for cannon 

Old brass ! Why, it burns with a glory 

Of carbuncles, diamonds, pearls ; 
With the very crown jewels of story 

Enwreathed with the tresses of girls ! 
The mail of the maiden Joanna ; 

Cornelia's pure fireside fame; 
Lucrece with her white soul of honor, 

La Motte with her arrows of flame. 

Old brass ! it is bright with the splendor 

Of its manhood's loftiest day, 
With the proud eye of Judith ; the slender 

Swift fingers of Charlotte Corday ; 
With the flash of the far-away cymbals 

When Miriam sang by the sea ! 
Old brass ! Why, it twinkles and trembles 

With the swords and the songs of the free. 

March 28, 1862 



"McHENRY" 



Oh, hark ! can you hear through the midnight a cry ? 

The captive's low wail from McHenry's prison ! 
Though the dungeon be deep and the battlements 
high, 
The manacle's bolt, it hath burst — and arisen. 
It hath "gone up on high," it hath climbed to the sky ; 

It hath crept into heaven; it never shall die 
While a stripe of the despots' black banner shall wave 
O'er the limbs of the free and the hearts of the 
brave. 

222 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Whenever, oh, freemen, that murmur awakes, 

Then, wake ye and rise, there is death in slumbers ; 
Be the echo ye yield as the tempest that shakes 

A continent's width, with a continent's numbers! 
Ye have blood to be stirred ! let it leap to the word, 

That shouts with the trumpet and shines with the 
sword 
While a stripe of the despots' black banner shall wave 

O'er the limbs of the free, o'er the hearts of the 
brave. 

Oh ! swift be the sword, in the day of its wrath, 

To cleave the dark walls of yon dungeon asunder ; 
When the captive's appeal shall return on its path 

With the lightning's red flash and the leaping of 
thunder ; 
For the judgment is set, for the storm-clouds are met, 

And the vengeance that lingers shall never forget, 
While a stripe of the despots' black banner shall wave 

O'er the limbs of the free, o'er the hearts of the 
brave. 



THE UNITY OF THE RACES 

Are black and white of kith and kin ? 

The same or the reverse, sir? 
In heel and shin and wool and skin 

A unit, or diverse, sir? 

And what's a hybrid, if I may 

Request an explanation ? 
About the poorest thing to pay 

That's known to speculation; 
223 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The lowest speed, the loudest bray, 
That ever shocked creation, 

A yaller dog that has his day 
But not his generation/'-' 

Until the smiling heavens make 
Five senses all to blunder, 

It were as well for conscience' sake 
To keep the breeds asunder. 

And lest philanthropy should swim 
Through blood for "Cuffee's" fetter, 

We'll do the best we can for him 
Until we can do better. 



THE OLD PEACH TREE, WITH A MORAL 

That old unsightly tree, 
What moral might it teach, 

When it lately tendered me 
A melancholy peach ! 

Its roots in rifted clay, 

Its trunk to worm and sun ; 

Blown down and washed away, 
Yet strangely living on. 

The very utmost crest 

Of that unshadowed hill, 
And not, from east to west, 

A rival pinnacle ! 

*Ye mule and ye mulatto, if confined to a separate conti- 
nent, would speedily depopulate it. 
224 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Beside a cabin, all 

As mouldered as itself, 
With weeds upon the wall 

And a "May-pop" on the shelf. 

Of man, or beast, the sole 
Successful speculation ; 

The harvest of a whole 
Plantation's desolation ! 

What moral might it teach, 
That old unsightly tree, 

As it tendered me a peach, 
Acidulous, tho' free ! 

'Twas thus the peach-tree said : 
"Oh, stranger, tell me why, 

If this old peach ain't dead, 
A peach should ever die?" 

But I only shook my head, 
And only answered, "Why!" 



YE LITTLE TREE 

Take it up tenderly, 

Plant it with care ; 
It's but a little tree, 

Nothing to spare. 
Scant are the limbs on't, 

Fibers but few, 
Take care, or it won't 

Take care of you. 
225 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Mangle the bark of it, 

Man without soul ; 
Pestle the roots of it 

Into a hole. 
Oh, for the shame of it, 

Better be dead; 
Fruit to the name of it, 

Nary a red ! 

Take it up tenderly, 

Man with a soul ; 
Oh ! but a little tree 

Likes a big hole. 
Fair is the sight of it, 

Lordly and bold; 
Fruit on the limbs of it 

Crimson and gold! 

Who'd be a market-man 

Selling his fruit, 
Gum in his eye and 

A worm at his root ? 
Down with the raw-bone, 

Shriveled and dry! 
Juice for my jaw-bone! 

Joy for my eye ! 

Basket on basketful, 

Peach upon peach; 
Juno-like, beautiful, 

Rosy and rich. 
Choose for the good of you 

Orchardists, each; 
Dollar a load, of you, 

Dollar a peach. 

226 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



TO THE CHOIR 
On his departure for the North in 1841 

Our Frank is gone, that nice young man, 

We ne'er shall see him more ; 
He wore his collar upside down 

And buttoned it before. 

His soul was tuned to music sweet, 

Although he could not sing ; 
He wore his shoes upon his feet 

And tied them with a string. 

Of all the youths the world e'er saw 

He surely was the best ; 
His hat was made of Leghorn straw 

And satin was his vest. 

The "stops" would say if they could speak. 

His like was never seen; 
He wore his gray coat all the week, 

And Sunday wore his green. 

The "swells" shall long remember him 

With fond affection too; 
His hair was rather brown than black, 

His eyes were grayish blue. 

And all the ladies of the choir 
For him had set their caps, — 

He wore his breeches very loose 
And always hated straps. 

But now he's gone, that nice young man, 
Oh, who can fill his place ! 
227 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



For who can pull the organ stops 
With such "exquisite grace." 



But wheresoever be his lot, 
His fate, to sink or swim, 

His name shall never be forgot 
While we remember him. 



A HISTORY OF THE CHOIR, OR, WHAT'S 
IN A NAME? 

Should all the goddesses of old 

Now meet as they are wont, 
They'd shortly find to their dismay 

That they had lost their count,—- 
For Dia'n's left the Elysian fields 

And come on earth to Hunt. 

And should Apollo angry be 
And follow her, why then, sir, 

I'd make him dress as mortals do, 
And fit him with a Spencer. 

Old Time had stopped in his fell career, 
And his scythe on the willows hung, 

And he'll go away with a flea in his ear 
From one who shall ever be Young. 

But gods and goddesses are sca'ce 

In a wicked world like this, 
For truly earth is far too base 

For such exquisite Bliss. 

228 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



But should Dan Cupid, naked come 

And anyone deride him, 
We'd take the little rascal in 

And find a place to Hyde him. 

And last, not least, that man must meet 

Much favor in our eyes 
Who with a disposition sweet 

Is good as he is Wise. 

But surely it is very wrong 

To make such rhymes in church, 

And so I'll loose my fiddle strings 
And come down from my Perch. 
1840 



"LITTLE ROSE" 

No poem 

"Fee, fo, fum ! my poem's come !" 
I wonder how she knew it ! 

"And here's your paper, pen and — I — 
Want to see you 'do it' !" 

Oh, pallid paper, tintless ink ! 

And steel of the untender! 
How can a little lyric think 

Itself a thing of splendor ! 

My little rune against a June 
Of dimples and rose-blushes ! 

Ah, when the daylight drowns the moon 
The skylark hides and hushes ! 

229 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Now, will you close your eyes, my Rose, 
And hold your blushes steady, 

And here my dazzled "Idyl" goes 
To — dimple-smash a'ready ! 

Am I a tropic traveller 

To "book" my summer sheaves; 
To mock my bright "equator," here 

With skeletons of leaves ! 

Nay, blush and dimple as you will, 

To overtake or vary 
Thy lyric-self, my little elf, 

Is past all "stationery !" 

I'll write your rhyme another time, 
By some gray spectre haunted ! 

But summer-time ! Oh, princess ! I'm 
Idyl-dumb ! — "enchanted !" 



TO A VERY BEAUTIFUL OLD LADY 
(Maria Byrd) 

Yea ! many songs of many Mays 

Our little nest has heard ; 
But none were sweeter than the lays 

Of this old mother bird ! 

And when the world is withered dry 

To its profoundest glen, 
We'll seek her soul of Eden ; aye, 

Begin the world again. 

230 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE BUMBLE BEE 

In the White Macartney Rose. 

Mr Burke: Children who have occasion to pass by a 
hedge of the Cherokee— "White Macartney"— Rose will 
hardly fail to find the lesson which the bumble bee exposes 
«o widely in the prosecution of his labor. He not only 
"sings at his work," he dances! As though the "pollen 
which impregnates the flower had diffused through himself 
a delirium of delight, he fairly rolls over with ecstacy ! In 
fact, he "carries on" after a fashion that plain prose has no 
idea of how to do justice to; and even poetry, if it were 
read over to him, would, I am afraid, elicit only a con- 
temptous "hum! Paint my felicity? H-U-M-M !"-The 
Bee and His Business. 

Since Solomon the king, 
Since eggs were voted eggs, 

I have not seen a thing 
So happy in the legs, 

So busy on the wing, 
So merry in the legs! 

So merry and so wise — 

And both at once, all over, 
Like one whose duty lies 

With his delight, in clover ! 
Who loads his happy thighs 

With gold, by rolling over, 
Who sees his fortune rise 

By rolling, rolling over 

In some great orchard! Which 
Should cause it come to pass 

A man grew fat and rich 
By rolling in the grass — 

By nibbling at a peach 
And rolling in the grass ! 

231 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE OPALET 

Shall I sing, my pet, of the opalet — 

Wonderful creature, he! 
Right exquisite, with his petals bright, 

Blossoming down in the sea. 

Couleur de rose, as the iris glows 
In the blue where the rain mists be, 

Lovelier yet, the opalet 
Shines in the azure sea. 

Satin and rose, as he glows and grows, 
Blossoming down in the sea. 

I bid ye beware of a cruel snare, 

Oh, fish of the foolish fin; 
For the opalet is a host, you bet, 

In the science of "take you in." 

But he's tied, my own, to a coral stone, 
And he can't come out of the sea, 

And I hardly think, if we let him alone, 
He'll lunch upon you and T. 



THE MARMOT'S HARVEST HOME 

From a Sketch in Burke's Weekly 

If you haven't heard, you can hardly tell 

The marmot's way 

Of hauling hay 
To his hole, to his house, to his home, his — well, 
Wink if you will and say — his "cell !" 

232 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Flat of his back, with his legs on end, 
Like a fodder-frame, as you comprehend, 
Stiff as sticks ; while a marmot friend 
Piles him high with the fragrant stuff, 
Packs him down with a "quantum suff," 
Till the under marmot hollers "enough !" 



Then four marmots, all in a row, 

Haul him by the tail, you know, 

To his hole, his house, his home, his — well, 

Quite excusable — say his "sell!" 

You don't believe it? There may be some 
They don't invite to their harvest home; 
But I believe it! and here I say 
That never since marmots have gathered hay 
Did your Doctor meet 'em, by night or day, 
Hauling it home another way. 



TWENTY-SIXTH OF APRIL 
The first day of the week. — St. Luke xxiv: i 

No wreath of roses, no breath of spice, 
The Women may weep alone ! 

While the sepulchre holds the sacrifice, 
And there's none to move the stone ! 

A little pebble from Plymouth Rock, 

To roll to a boulder one day, 
When a fine morality shuns the shock 

Of — loving your dead on Sunday ! 

233 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And yet how sacred that holy day 

Which sees all souls unite, 
When none shall number the hearts that say 
"Our Father," nor challenge the lips that pray 

As Gentile or Israelite ! 

The holiest day for the holiest deed 
That ever the earth hath known ; 
Oh, darkened hearts of our sunny land, 
This day for the dead — if the angel hand 
Shall roll away the stone. 



SYMBIE— A LEGEND 

"Symbie?" Symbie! comical name! 

What comical thing can wear it? 
A child of mirth, of the air or earth, 

Or a diabolical spirit ? 
Not a fairy bright, not a ghost in white, 

Not a demon, though very near it. 
"Symbie !" whatever the tale be worth, 

Listen, and you shall hear it. 

In the lonely lands of the long-leaf pine, 

Of the odorous balsam smelling, 
Where the Tar-Heel gathers the turpentine 

That he gathers a name by selling, 
There are little fountains that dimple and shine, 

And these are the Symbie's dwelling. 
There are fishes that swim in the fount with him, 
The perch, the roach, and the trout so trim, 
The sucker sedate, and the goggled-eyed "brim," 

Can vouch for the story I'm telling. 

234 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A grizzled and tan old fisherman, 

For a goblin so gay and so frisky, 
His fishing line is a bolus vine, — 
Bullace, you call it? or Muscadine, — 

And his bait is a bottle of whisky. 

And woe to the wight who comes by night 

To the fount of the misty curtain, 
For the Symbie, straight, lets down his bait, 

And catches a gudgeon certain, 
And the gudgeon sees strange mysteries 

Under the misty curtain. 

Glitter of silver and glimmer of gold 

Gleam on his reeling vision, 
Sparkle of gems and the manifold 

Glory of lights Elysian : 
Till there comes the touch of a hand so cold 

And scatters the golden vision, 
And only the hook of the fisher-spook 

Abides with the fiend's derision. 

And the serpents hiss and the lizards wink 

To the frog and her little daughter, 
And all together ascend the brink 

Of the Symbie's enchanted water. 
They wheeze, and whistle, and chatter, and chink, 
"Symbie ! Symbie ! what do you think !" 
"Symbie ! Symbie ! nibble and drink ;" 
"Drunk ! and fell in the water !" 

Never doubt that my story is true, — 

Only too mild I draw it, 
For I saw the freedman that said he knew 

The "nigger" that said he saw it. 

235 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THE BALL 
And who was there* 

The Devil cocked his chapeau, — 

He looked a little pale, — 
But he hid his hoofs in gaiters, 

And tucked away his tail; 
For he had been invited 

To the Doodle's quiet drum, 
In a little note, indited 

By "Mrs. D. to hum." 
The Devil tapped his snuff-box 

And grew a little grum, 
But only said, "Delighted," 

And, also, "Bound to come !" 

There was cooking in the kitchen, 

There was feasting in the hall, 
For the beautiful, bewitching 

Mrs. Doodle gave a ball ! 
The wines were of the rarest 

The Doodles ever stored, 
The women just the fairest 

The climate could afford; 
The lights were redly glancing, 

And the White House all abloom, 
With the damsels dancing, dancing, 

On the very crack of doom ! 
And the Devil tapped his snuff-box, 

But it answered with a Boom ! 

Oh, their limbs were ruby-clotted, 
And the "cutty sarks" they wore 

Were sprinkled, spattered, spotted, 
Splashed and stained with gore ! 

*Congress during the Reconstruction period. 
236 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Such a clatter, clack, and clamor, 

And the room so reeking full 
That Death could hardly hammer 

With his cross-bones on a skull ! 
And the Devil beamed his sweetest 

On the damsels in the room, 
And gently tapped his snuff-box, 

But still it muttered Boom ! 



UNDER GROUND 

March 4, 1869 
Congress during the Reconstruction period 

Satan sat in his parlor snug 

On a coil of his own dear tail, 
With a brimstone pipe and a mighty mug 

Of regular home-brewed ale. 

Handsome, wasn't he? Who would hint 

Of the gentleman in the chair 
Otherwise ? Since the Devil must print 

Whatever is written here ! 

His eyes were bright as a blaze of fire, 
And his brows were black above 'em ; 

And his face was big as a Yankee bomb 
When the Doodles made us love 'em. 

He sat at work ; for he keeps no clerk, 

And trusts to no attorney ; 
Though he keeps a place at his desk, in case 

Of a sudden run, for Forney. 

237 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



"Confound these Doodles !" the Devil said, 

As he stuck in his multiplication, 
"Their very names are enough to shed 

A stench on their generation ! 

"There's Greeley, and Beecher, and Weed — a flower ! 

Brown, Brownlow, and, let me think — 
Change the name and no skunk as sour 

Could possibly ever stink." 

They keep old Lucifer taxed of late 

To the double in pen and ink : — 
It's scribble and cipher and fumigate, 

And still they come and stink, 
Till the Devil can hardly calculate 

"What next," with a nod and a drink. 

Twenty times six is — the River Styx ! 

What's happened in Congress now? 
Are they coming through with their hullabaloo? — 

Such an infernal row ! 

"Ho, Asmodeus ! bar the door 

With a red-hot poker, do ! 
Some extra Doodle has got the floor, 

And I fear he will tumble through ! 

"Send an imp, if you have one cool, 

And tell him to wait till wanted ; 
He must go round if he is a fool, 

There's no through tickets — Granted. 

"I thought the Johnnies had taught him as much 

Whenever he dared to attack 'em ! 
Their Robert Lee (Diable !) met him never with such 

A Grand Army of Bummers to back him. 

238 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



"Darn these Doodles! again I say, 

The butcherly sons of thunder! 
Fuming hell in this sort of a way — 

Asmodeus, stand from under!" 

I heard a crash ! and I saw a spout 

Of flame through the sulphured smoke ! 
The Capitol sunk till its dome stuck out, 
And the woman on top shook her cap, with a shout ! 
And — luckily I awoke ! 



TWO MILLION PILLS PER DIEM 
(Turned Out at a Single Northern "Pill-ery") 

Two million pills a day ! and yet 

(Though people daily die) 
The rogues do flourish rich and great, 

And fools do multiply — 
The two great pill-ars of the State 

Stand prominent and high.. 

Two million pills ! a month's supply, 

If all arranged in boxes, 
Would equal the Equator; aye, 

And both the Equinoxes! 

Two million pills in single file 

Would over-run the cable, 
And rounded up, might go its pile 

Against the tower of Babel ! 

Enough to turn the planets pale, 

To heave the ocean dry, 
And crook the very comet's tail 

With perfect agony! 

239 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And oh, my countrymen ! the ills 
Your heedless stomachs dash on 

Might melt the makers of those pills 
To bowels of compassion. 

And could I cure you of the curse, 
With "learned skill," I'd cull 

And give you in one fragrant verse 
The "pill receipt" in full. 

Of rhubarb, aloes, jalap, just • 

As much as may suffice, 
With hydrargyrum, and a dust 

Of powdered liquorice. 

Then soap enough to make it stiff, 

And from a tower so tall 
The pills are pestled through a sieve, 

And rounded as they fall 
Like shot, my fellow countrymen, 

And yet you take them all ! 



240 



MEMORIAL AND RELIGIOUS 
POEMS 



MEMORIAL AND RELIGIOUS 
POEMS 

IN MEMORIAM 
Thomas Maduit Nelson, aetat 71 

They fail from council and from camp, they are 

falling one by one, 
Those grand old heroes of the stamp of God-loved 

Washington ; 
The task is wrought of mighty minds, their glorious 

day is done, 
And Freedom mourns a faded star with every setting 

sun. 

The kingly brow, the kindly hand, the proud and stal- 
wart form 

That stood the beacon of the might, the bulwark of 
the storm — 

How few and far on Glory's slope their lessening 
numbers stand, 

'The pillars of a people's hope," the Titans of the 
land. 

The mould is broken; here no more those regal 
souls we meet 

We kept their honor, tho' the world had rocked be- 
neath their feet ; 

The calm, clear dignity that shone no clearer for 
renown, 

The matchless majesty that won, but would not wear 
a crown. 

243 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Ah! when descends the sullen night of freedom's 

darkest hour, 
When demagogue and parasite defile the seats of 

power, 
When dust is on the eagle's crest, and stain on stripe 

and star, 
Ah ! who shall fill their robes in peace, or lift their 

swords in war? 

One more to that immortal band, that long illustrious 

line, 
That counts no nobler name, old friend, or purer 

soul than thine ; 
Yea, with the mighty in their death, their rest, and 

their reward, 
Sleep, in thy cloudless fame and faith, true soldier 

of the Lord. 

Sleep with the mighty in thy death ! yet not with these 
alone ; 

Sleep with the loving hearts that beat so truly to 
thine own ; 

Sleep with the sword-cross on thy breast, the well- 
worn scabbard by, 

Fit symbols of a soldier's rest and his reward on high. 



SANS CHANGE 
From the Seal-Ring of Bishop Beckwith 

An earl of England hath a crest 
An infant in an eagle's nest; 

And (hid to heraldry) the strange 
Yet simple legend, "Without change." 

244 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



No herald, yet I hold amiss 
The reading that traverses this. 

No doubt the eagle caught away 
The infant from its nurse that day, 

And felt new softness at the touch, 
Pervade his fiery spirit ; much 

As might the lion that relents,. 
A lamb, to Una's innocence. 

And well, methinks, the nursling might 
From the stern rapture of that flight 

Some token of the eyrie bring 

In dauntless eye and tireless wing; 

And so through annals richly stored, 
Of gown, of miter, and of sword, 

Transmit, unchanged, to all his race 
The eagle's lire, the infant's grace. 



YE REDBREAST AT CALVARY 

To Paul H. Hayne, "Chief Singer" 

'Twas but one thorn I might untwine 

From all that agony ! — 
Yet I shall wear the rosy sign — 
The red-cross of his smile divine 
Upon me till I die ! 

245 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



So to the land where angels sing 
Thy lyre from earth may bear 
A rapture on each radiant string 
For every pang thy song or wing 

Has soothed or shadowed there ! 



TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN 
BETHUNE 

Thoir fa'near an duine foirfe agus amhaire ait an duine 
iouraic; oir is i sith a's crioch do'n duine fin. — Psalm 
xxxvii. 

Sounds from an unforgotten shore 

And well remembered seas, 
Wail of the waves that break and roar 

Around the Hebrides ! 
Come with your low and solemn tread 

And long, unmeasured roll, 
Breathe for a dirge above the dead 

The music of his soul! 

Murmurs of that old Gaelic speech 

From islands far away, 
With your last echoes rise and reach 

His parting soul to-day ! 
Dead hero ! on whose brow appears, 

In green immortal youth, 
The laurel of a hundred years 

Of constancy and truth ! 



246 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



CHARLES J. JENKINS 

Governor of Georgia during Reconstruction period. Re- 
moved from office by Federal military authority 

Worthiest! In whom we trace 
The manhood and the matchless grace 
Of him, the foremost gentleman 
Of all his age and all his race,* 

Our Georgian! 
How from his grave the pure and grand 
Old Oglethorpe would clasp thy hand 
Across the centuries. How smile 
In those true eyes that guard the while 
His State from plunder and the torch — 
Watching from pinnacle to porch. 
From broad foundation to the height 
Of her last keystone, where we write 
Thy name among the chiefest great ! 
The wise — the just — the moderate — 
The treble pillar of the State ! 



IN MEMORY 



Death's silence— for the angel's hymn 
Awaits a shrouded hearth! 

Death's darkness ! for the heavens are dim 
Without a "night" on earth ! 

We sow in tears ; bring Grief our gain 
In God's good season, blest; 

Bring, scattered bloom, the golden grain 
And toil, our time of rest ! 

♦Witness: Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Hannah Moore, 
the king, queen, court and council, and all the lights of his 
age. 

247 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



And cannot we, as we number o'er 
Our saintly treasures riven, — 

Without their brightness gone before 
How distant still were Heaven ! 



IN MEMORY OF A LITTLE GIRL 
And not without hope 

Deep, deep in the choral dawning 
Of a beautiful earth and skies 

Our Lily came out of the morning, 
Lily with violet eyes. 

Only a star-beam's quiver, 

The space that the spice-wind stirs — 
Yet the faces were brightened forever 

Once they had looked on hers ! 

And now that our wan eyes glisten, 
Full front to the stars of "Rest"— 

We kneel as at dawn, and listen, 

The choral that comes from the west. 

And the lingering clouds go drifted 
Away on her angel breath — 

The last of the shadows lifted 

From thy valley of light, O Death ! 



OUR TREASURE IN HEAVEN 

Sleep sweetly, gentle one, 
Sleep till thy shrouded eyes 

Shall waken 'mid the bowers of God, 
Oh, bird of Paradise! 

248 



TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Oh, softest, gentlest hands 
Did soothe thee to thy rest ; 

And the pure souls that welcomed thee 
Were highest of the blest. 

Often we'll call thy name, 

And the pure joy it brings 
Shall cheer us as the rustling sound 

Of thy young seraph's wings. 

The hosts that follow thee 

To the pure throne of God 
Shall find no shadow in the vale 

Thy little feet have trod. 



"THE CHILDREN THAT ARE NOT" 

The children, the children that are not! Ah, why 
From the ends of the earth swells that desolate cry ? 
Has the dull world a glory, the bright skies a gloom, 
That a wail should arise at the gates of the tomb? 

Ah ! deem ye the sparrow its pathway may hold, 
Yet a lamb of Christ's love be lost from His fold? 
That the diamond's sparkle should never burn dim, 
Yet a spirit be quenched that was kindled by Him ? 

Are the husbandman's tears with his toil in vain? 
From the scattered seed shall there spring no grain ? 
Hath the chrysalis wings ere its shroud is wound? 
Hath the violet breath in the dull cold ground ? 

Yea ! bless ye, God, as ye bend above 
The broken lilies of tears and love, 

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That not without witness the hope was given 
That a "little child" should be first in Heaven. 

Ah ! mighty the anguish, and many the tears 
That must win for our spirits a glory like theirs 
Unsinning — unsmitten! The children that trod 
Through the lightness of earth to the wonders of 
God. 

Yea! bear them to rest 'mid the flowers that tell 
Their Master's meaning so clear and well, 
And know by their pathway an angel hath trod 
From the brightness of earth to the bosom of God ! 

Torch Hill, 
March, 1865. 



FAITH 



Why sits pale Sorrow at the gate of Heaven, 
With eyes so wan, such wild and haggard air, 

As one whose woe with God's own arm had striven 
And won the triumph of a wild despair? 

Crouched where the shadow of the marble portal 
Falls deep and deeper on her clouded eyes, 

Speeding with wail and cry the feet immortal 
That enter there the walks of Paradise ! 

Angel of Faith! shall sullen sorrow render 
Thy smile a mockery to the hearts that mourn ? 

Deepen the gloom, yet not reveal the splendor 
Where saints depart and seraphim are born? 

Star of our souls ! what other light shall linger 
When on our hearts the tomb's dark shadow 
falls, 

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If thou trace not with thy uplifted finger 
The gathering glory on its inner walls ? 

And thou ! on thine own gentle bosom blending 
The broken lilies of our tears and love, 

Lighten the pathway where our feet are tending, 
Lengthen the cords that guide our hearts above ! 

Torch Hill, 
January, 1855. 

THE CHILD AND THE CHURCHYARD 
CROSS 

To little Katie, suggested by seeing her clasp the cross 
erected on her mother's grave. 

She twined her arms about the cross 

And bowed her little head ; 
So clasp the only link between 

Our sorrow and our dead. 

The pure white marble felt her cheek 

Cling with that mute caress 
That mothers know ; that may not speak 

To other tenderness. 

Yes, fold thy pinions round the cross, 
Sweet dove, and feel no fear; 

No note but one of tenderness 
Shall ever meet thee here. 

And from these mounds of sacred earth 
Our sundered hearts between, 

Draw thou the fragrance of their worth 
To keep their memory green. 

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It must have answered, for her smile 

Grew as an angel's fair ; 
And soft hands, in a little while, 

Laid little Katie there. 



Torch Hill, 
Easter Sunday, 1858. 



LITTLE KATIE 

The lily we love, it is whiter 

For the darkness that covers the day; 
The pearl of our souls, it is brighter 

For the shadows that turn to gray. 

To the sunlight that calls, its tender 
Pale petals are closed and chill; 

To the dew, though it falls from the splendor 
Of stars, it is silent still. 

Let the darkness fall deep, and deliver 

Unveiled to our weary eyes 
The pearl by the Eden River 

Our lily in Paradise. 



LINES 

To Mrs. Lucy E. Cairns 

Upborne by angels in a world of sorrow, 
In others' anguish losing half her own ; 

So taught of grief that darkened souls might borrow 
Their light of sunshine from her lips alone! 

Herself a seraph, whose unfolding pinions 
And upward glance betray her better birth, 

Yet lingering still amid the dull world's minions 
To win some wanderer from the ills of earth. 

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As fair of form as lily-pure of spirit, 

Heaven watched, and guided in her upward way ; 
Ah ! such as she are they who shall inherit 

The strength and triumph of a better day. 



THE "COMFORTER" 
To his sister, Lucy E. T. Cairns 

You may call; she will come. Not the shadow of 
night 

Shrouds a sorrow she shuns to meet, 
And you shall not know by her steps so light 

What sharpness hath pierced her feet: — 

That the balm of her healing was bruised of pain, 

The breath of a smitten lyre ; 
That the touch, so cool to your fevered brain, 

Was purified by fire. 

But you shall believe that a wing so swift, 

And a voice of so sweet a tone, 
Shall shine with the stars when the clouds uplift, 

And sing by the great white throne. 



FLOWERS AFTER FROST* 
In memory of Harriot Coolidge Ticknor, aetat 62. 

Another lesson, oh, gentle flowers, 
Ye bring to the heart that grieves, 

A word of love from our loved and lost 
Is written upon your leaves. 

*October 19, 1854. 

Dearest Sister: 
I have gathered some beautiful "souvenirs" to-day since 

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A written word from the saintly hands 
That have gone to their holy rest, 

With the frosts of winter upon their heads, 
But summer within the breast. 

They pass away as the isles of light 

Go down from the purple west, 
And their setting splendor is rare and bright 

With the glory of the blest. 

They fail as the darkening year departs, 
They fade with the autumn flowers ; 

And the hand of Time, that stills their hearts, 
Falls heavily on ours. 

We take, as the warrior takes in strife, 

The rank of those who die; 
And we keep their watch in the war of life, 

And we send their prayer on high, 

For courage to walk in the ways of truth, 
And the strength to keep at last, 

'Mid the frosts of winter the bloom of youth 
And the fragrance of the past. 

i853 



the frost, but as I had no safe conveyance I concluded to 
send you so much of the essence of them as I could extract. 

I do not think that I have succeeded in giving utterance 
to the emotions with which they inspired me. The principal 
idea is of that feeling of "old age" and added responsibility 
which the death of those whom we love and honor never 
fails to communicate to me at least. 

Like a soldier in battle when he sees the rank before him 
go down, he feels that the same blow has numbered him 
among the "forlorn hope" ; and in such a case blessed is he 
who can look death as cheerfully in the face as these 
flowers. Your loving brother, 

Frank. 

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MARY 

Mary H. Dillingham 

Shall I whisper a name that was lovely of old, 
When the tale of the infant Messiah was told — 
The honored of God, in her sorrow sublime, 
Still haunting the heart in the shadows of Time? 

O'er the starlight of Judah the night mists were 

rolled, 
On the Galilee's bosom the night winds were cold, — 
When it woke on the midnight, so solemn and dim, 
With the flame of a Star and the sound of a hymn, 

Is its magic decayed? Is its mission fulfilled? 
Is its memory cold, or its melody stilled? 
Can its syllabled music still people the air 
With the visions of love and the voices of prayer ? 

Yea, bright with the luster and sweet with the tone 
Of the angels that sang and the Glory that shone, 
Its echoes are soft, through the haze of the years, 
With the breath of her sigh and the dew of her tears. 

And still at the altar, and still at the hearth, 
From the cradle of Christ to the ends of the earth, 
As gentle in glory, as steadfast in gloom, 
It tells of the Manger, the Cross, and the Tomb. 

And many shall bless it, and many have blest, 
In the morning of life, in the morrow of rest ; 
And its fullness of meaning its music shall keep 
While a Mary shall watch or a Mary shall weep. 



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THE PILGRIM 

No staff, nor script, nor sandal shoon, 

Oh, pilgrim, pure and frail ! 
No light to guide thee through the gloom 

Of Death's dark, narrow vale. 
With naked feet doth fearless tread 

That cold and thorny path ? 
With folded hands doth meet the dread 

And subtle tempter's wrath? 

Pass on in peace, for staff and script 

A Saviour's hand supplies, 
And the pure light of Heaven fills 

Thy soft uplifted eyes. 
Pass on, the path of innocence 

No terror shall assail ; 
And God shall be thy sure defence 

In Death's dark, narrow vale. 



SPERANS 



Our life is gray, in silence down the aisles 

The dead dreams slumber with their frozen smiles 

And folded hands; while darkening year on year 
Adds dust to gloom and seal to sepulchre. 

A place to watch ! If so some angel's tread 
May stir the ashes where our loved lie dead ; 

Some censer kindle, or some seraph's hymn 
Steal from the dawn adown the cloisters dim ; 

Till a soft splendor burns through all the tomb, 
And tints the Parian with eternal bloom ! 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



WHAT, OH, MAN 

"And what, Oh, man, hath the Lord required of thee but 
to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
thy God?"— Micah vi: 8. 

Do justice! while the slender thread 
Above thine own unsheltered head 
Restrains the wrath thy breath might free. 
"Do justice !" Justice asks of thee ! 

Love mercy ! while no heavenward prayer 
Unblessed by blessing enters there, 
That mercy may unmeasured be. 
"Love mercy !" Mercy asks of thee ! 

Walk humbly ! let the desert dusk 
O'er buried pride and broken trust 
Bear foot-prints of humility. 
"Walk humbly," God requires of thee ! 

"Do justice," by thy sins forgiven, 
"Love mercy," by thy hopes of heaven, 
"Walk humbly with thy God," for He 
Requires no other task of thee ! 



UNTO THE EVEN 

Toilers till the eventide, 
By all waters sowing wide, 
Faint not for the summer's heat, 
Halt not for the weary feet. 
Forth ! were labor's guerdon less 
Than a crown of righteousness. 

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Wist we of the seed we sow 
How the tender blade shall grow, 
How the tiny germ may hold 
The harvest of an hundred fold, — 
Bud and blossom, how they swell, 
Momently a miracle? 

By our paths of pain and care 
Still the lily blossoms fair, 
And the sparrow finds her nest 
In the temple's sacred rest, — 
Witnessing with Him who saith 
Be ye faithful unto death. 

He who fixed the planet's place 
Clothes the lily with its grace; 
He who marks the sparrow's fall 
Hath His mercy for us all, — 
And His loving pity sees 
That our life is more than these. 

Therefore by the water's side 
Toil we till the even tide, 
Trusting while a flower may share 
The bounty of His love and care,- 
Toiling, were our guerdon less 
Than a crown of righteousness. 



REST IN THE LORD 

Thy task is done, so let the sun 
Through all his summer cycle run. 

The seed is in the ground; resign 
The rest to better Care than thine,- 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



That watched ere Eden's glory grew, 
And sprinkles this last mound with dew. 

Guiding the cloudlet from the deep, 
He biddeth His beloved sleep, 

In foretaste, ere our summers cease, 
Of yonder great white harvest — peace. 



"EVEN UNTO THE END" 

Darkness upon the troubled deep — 
A cry, — and none to save! 

"Christ !" and the thunder of the sea 

Sank to an infant's lullaby, 

Sank to a summer calm, for He 
Was with them on the wave. 

Darkness beside the lonely grave 

Where the loved Lazarus slept, — 
"Christ," at whose feet the full heart cried, 
"Thou Lord, and Lazarus had not died." 
Christ, at whose call the dead replied, 
Was with them while they wept. 

Ask thou, my soul, no sweeter stay, 

Seek thou no safer friend! 
Christ with His feet upon the wave, 
Christ, with the hand to heal and save, 
Christ, from the cradle to the grave, 
Is with thee to the end. 



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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



THOUGH HE SLAY ME, YET WILL I 
TRUST HIM" 

A pure and child-like trust, — 

Be this my better part — 
To give Thee from the dust 

An undefiled heart ! 

Bowed down, my Lord, not crushed 
By Thine own good decree; 

Be each emotion hushed 
That trusts not still in Thee. 

The oil of joy for tears 

Thy love shall yet bestow; 

And praise, through endless years, 
For heaviness below ! 

For ashes shall the pride 

Of beauty's garments be 
To him who, sorely tried, 

Still trusted, Lord, in Thee! 



EASTER 



Christ ! arisen ? Lift your eyes ! 
Lo ! what glory fills the skies ! 
Winter's death is dead, and born 
The summer's hope in springing corn. 
While the lily cleaves the sod, 
W 7 ho shall bind the Son of God ? 

Christ ! arisen ? The sun to-day 
Unseals a tomb, and rolls away 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



All mists of midnight like a stone, 
All raiment save of light alone. 
Shall the single shadow fall 
On the Christ, the Lord of all? 

Christ! arisen? Roman steel 
Sentineled that stone and seal. 
Rome, in her imperial power, 
Watched until the dawning hour,— 
Watched and witnessed, bowed and said, 
"Christ is risen from the dead I" 

Oh, by all an Age's trust, 
By our darlings laid in dust, 
In our griefs the single stay, 
Of our joys the central ray — 
Cease, my doubt, thy sentry tread, 
"Christ is risen from the dead ! 



Torch Hill, 1869 



CHRISTMAS CAROL 

With the angels that sang and smiled, 

With the angels that smile and sing, 
From the cradle of Christ the child 

To the coming of Christ our King ; 
Till Bethlehem's starlight bloom 

Unto the perfect day, 
Let wisdom and innocence bring 
Carol and offering 

To Christ on this Christmas day. 

Songs in our melancholy?— 
Smiles in our house of woe?— 

There are thorns and blood in the holly. 
There are tears in the mistletoe ; 

Shall their verdure be counted folly 
By Him who ordained it? No! 
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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Our past ! let it pass to the flowers 
That cover our churchyard clay; 

To-morrow? — (God governs the hours); 

Let us bury in beautiful flowers 
The crucified feet to-day ! 

Peace and good-will ! that carol still, 

From Christmas so far away ! 
Good-will and peace, till the world shall cease 

With its wars on a Christmas day ! 

And I tell you, gentle and semple, 

That greater than power or pelf 
Is the text from our Lord's own temple, — 

Love all as you love yourself ; 
Better than brimstone poppers, 

Or all the fiery trains 
That fizzle away your coppers 

And fuzzle away your brains, 
Is the moral here which your carol 

With all its might maintains, — 
That the world doth move by weight of love, 

And not of lead or brains. 

And your wisdom were stupid blindness, 

And your strength of how little use, 
To that drop of the oil of kindness 

In the widow's unwasted cruse ! 
It moves ! let us keep it moving ! 

Hasten the happy day 
When all the world's gone loving, 

And Christmas comes — to stay ! 
Such a tree as our eyes shall see 

That winter shall warm the ages, 
And waken the pure in heart as sure 

As your laborer works for wages. 

Christmas. 1868 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

Let the gates of night unbar 
Before the bright and morning star, 
Let the shining Seraphim 
Chant the Christ-Child's cradle hymn, 
Let the innocent and wise 
Join that carol from the skies. 
Let the little children sing 
At Thy cradle, Christ our King. 

Songs of prophets from of old 
Sung by saints on harps of gold, 
Blent with triumph and with tears, 
Trembling through two thousand years, 
All that life of love and pain 
Wakes and walks the earth again, 

While the little children sing; 

At Thy cradle, Christ our King. 

Till Thy coming! In that hour 
Of Thy majesty and power 
When the star of steadfast ray 
Brightens to the perfect day, — 
When the heavens shall shout and when 
The earth shall answer, "Peace, Amen. 
Let the little children sing 
At Thy Triumph, Christ our King. 



THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS 

Recall, while now thy longing gaze 
Grows dim with more than autumn's haze, 
Of all the walks thy feet have pressed,— 
That path the peacefulest to rest : 
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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Of fountains that thy need have nursed, 
That "well" the sweetest to thy thirst : 

Of flowers — and lo ! thy hands were full- 
That blossom the most beautiful : 

Of touch and tone, through all the past, 
The tenderest and lingering last : 

That radiance of the vanished years, 
Most radiant for thy very tears : 

Name that which, trembling like a star, 
Shines with our loved and lost, so far; 

Yet nearest to our inner dreams 
Brings the soft flow of Eden's streams; 

Lighting the shadows where we stand 
With angel eyes on either hand : — 

Mute lips, or with hosannas, these 
Make answer with our memories, 

In music blending to express 
Pure beauty in its perfectness — 
Earth's charm, Heaven's glory — 
"Holiness." 
Torch Hill, 
March 10, 1869 



THE CHURCH 

Dear mother, in this weary waste 

Of error and of woe 
How sweet the smile, how soft the rest 

Thy little children know ! 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



The trumpet's clangor at thy wall 
Stirs not thy peace above ; 

We hear, and only hear, the call 
Of our dear mother's love. 

Her touch upon our infant brow, 
Her tears above our dead, 

Her tones of tenderness are now 
As in the years that fled. 

Nor fades of all her bloom and balm 
One blossom from her wreath, 

More radiant in celestial calm 
For all the storms beneath. 

Bright beacon, nearest to the skies 
Of all that light the sea — 

Blest haven, where our treasure lies 
And where our hearts would be ! 

Dear mother, till our labors rest, 
And all our sorrows cease ! 

Who clings the closest to thy breast 
Best knows thy perfect peace. 



THE CEMETERY 

A churchyard walk, and by the way 

We saw on either hand 
More symbols of the world's "decay" 

Than of the "better land" ! 

With more of rigid carpentry, 
And less of bloom and leaf, 

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TICKNOR'S POEMS 



Than tokened brotherhood in death 
Or fellowship in grief. 

And yet, without these mouldering pales 

'Twere easy to o'erspread 
With Eden grace these silent vales, 

This city of the dead. 

Without this mass of tangled brier 
Yon oak were not less green; 

And happily yon heavenward spire 
Were more distinctly seen ! 

The "vexed Bermuda" here might rest 

In undisturbed retreat, 
On many a long-forgotten breast 

And long-neglected street. 

The dead white column, cross and urn 

With olive shadowed o'er, 
Might teach us, when we come to mourn, 

This much, if nothing more: 

That vainly o'er our lost delights 
The pomp of marble towers 

Without the gentle care that writes 
Its Martha-thought in flowers. 

Torch Hill, 
October 16, 1858 



266 



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